


The Vinculum Wars

by asmodeusyne



Series: The Vinculum Wars [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Genre: F/M, Kylo Ren - Freeform, Rey - Freeform, Star Wars - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-11 00:23:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 42,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13512882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asmodeusyne/pseuds/asmodeusyne
Summary: "She's just a girl, and she's bound to me. She'll forgive me in a month, a year. Perhaps when I've slaughtered the rest of her friends, or when they abandon her after they learn the truth. Don't think I can't teach her the meaning of the word 'forsaken'."After the events of An Unrelenting Force--When Rey and Kylo Ren defy the Force bond and try to kill eachother in a suicidal duel, it turns their powerful connection against itself. The energy backlash is so powerful it fragments time, blasting them back to the aftermath of the battle in the throne room, where they each make a different decision.Two choices, two timelines, and two unexpected outcomes. They learn that no one can outrun fate, and it's dangerous to get what you want.





	1. The Reaper

When Kylo Ren returned to the _Reaper_ after two days and three nights on surface of the planet Ahch-To, Armitage Hux did not fail to notice the man’s battered, bruised state. His leader had never been the most stable or consistent of superiors- not counting the consistency of his tantrums, or the violence of his retribution against minor offences- but the empty look in Ren’s eyes gave him even more pause. If he hadn’t known better, and he very much knew better, Hux would have sworn that the mighty Kylo Ren had suffered some deep emotional loss.

When those eyes flicked to him, Hux turned away quickly, straightening his back and adopting a position of military readiness. “Sir. All is in order. We can jump to lightspeed at your command.”

Hux shivered as he felt the fingers of Ren’s power crawling over his mind, drawing off his thoughts and turning them over like so many leaves in a book. Then Ren released him from his scrutiny, apparently disinterested in his general’s silent impertinence. He took his tall black presence over to the bridge commander’s seat, dropping down into it with what Hux could have sworn was a soul-weary sigh.

In normal circumstances, Hux would be quietly calculating how he might make an advantage out of such signs. But he, without knowing why, was deeply unnerved by it. Cautiously, he approached his master.

Kylo Ren, apparently, wasn’t troubling to delegate his intentions at the moment. Displays that normally required operators appeared before the bridge canopy, opening on a schematic of the planet below, and a visual on the island they knew to have been the final resting place of Luke Skywalker.

Ren seemed to contemplate the place, and again Hux caught that wistfulness in his eyes. Then he closed them and took one long shuddering breath. The eyes that opened were so full of contempt and disdain that they appeared to belong to a different man. The one that Hux knew, and feared, and envied.

“That island,” Ren said, pointing with two gloved fingers. “Destroy it. Burn it to slag. Every inch of it.”

“At once, Lord Ren.”

Hux gestured to the helmsman, who immediately punched in the coordinates.

The _Reaper_ was a modified battlecruiser of Ren’s own design. As deep as his dislike went, Hux couldn’t help but admire the graceful atmospheric stabilizers and the carbon black hull his master had ordered for it. It was well armed with gun emplacements in the stabilizers, and included a heavy laser cannon along the dorsal and in the ventral axis. That they recessed flush to the hull meant that the ship sacrificed some crew capacity, but it hardly mattered. The thing was built, above all, for speed, stealth and maneuverability. The modifications were tailored for the gravitational challenges of surface combat, interstellar combat and everything in between. It was almost worth being passed over the admiralty to have the first office on this masterpiece.

Unlike virtually all of his predecessors, Kylo Ren preferred to work close. When it came to conquest, he privileged details over grand gestures, conserving the quickly diminishing resources of the First Order by using ground armies to subdue ground populations and form self-sufficient occupations. Then he would order captives pulled away from their families and communities, group rival factions together to ensure disunity and discourage cooperation, and send them all to the furthest reaches of the Order territories to mine, and labour, and die.

There were a very select few individuals that lived in captivity aboard different ships in his fleet. Hux did not inquire, but he did hazard a guess that those young individuals- each of them housed in different ships far from each other- showed some aptitude that Kylo Ren valued. It was possible they were Force-sensitive. But then again, that possibility also warranted another: that he intended to kill them the instant they showed signs of Force abilities.

That suited Hux fine. Perhaps a warrior would rise one day to cast down the great Kylo Ren, but Hux knew he wouldn't survive the fall.

Kylo Ren appeared to be contemplating him. Not menacingly, just watching him steadily. The light from the view screen illuminated his long face, highlighting a yellow bruise on his cheekbone that looked like it might be a fracture. The instant Hux thought it, Ren reached out and touched it with his gloved fingers.

Then he rose, turning away from the sight of the approaching island. “Send a medic droid to my quarters. Anyone who disturbs me without very good cause, will be defenestrated.”

He swept out in his usual whirl of black cowl. Hux watched him go, rather surprised that he was not remaining to see his order carried out, especially given the evident venom behind it. Turning aside from his curiosity, the general resumed the seat his master had just occupied. The island, a collection of stone spires and shockingly green grass, stood sentry some hundred yards below them.

“Deploy the ventral cannon. Fire at will.”

Very little of the island’s surface caught fire from the first blast, but by the second it began to glow with radiation, the surf around it boiling away into steam. Two, three, then five more blasts and it was done. It was reduced to its raw components, a shapeless, red hot lump.

Only when his task was complete and they returned to orbit did Hux notice the wetness where his hand lay on the armrest. He lifted it, and looked at the shining red on his fingers. He was baffled. Whatever had taken place on the island they had just now obliterated, it appeared to have cost Ren dearly.


	2. Big Guns

“It’s called the Chronomian Silo Array,” Poe said as he adjusted the holographic dimensional map, pulling out of the Chronomian System to reveal six modest planets with multiple, formerly inhabited moons. Visible on the five largest were massive missile silos.

“They are not," he continued. "By scale, the size of the late Starkiller Base, but they are still large enough to fly a battleship through.”

Finn was only half listening. Ever since they’d received the communique from Rey, he had kept one eye on the freighter’s porthole, waiting to see a sign of her. He was almost asleep, but then woke to Poe’s finger snapping in his face.

“Finn! Focus, kid.”

He blinked. “I’m up. I’m here.”

“Good, because our intelligence says that the First Order has started investigating these old guns.”

“What would they want with some thousand year old technology?” Finn wondered. “They can build anything they need.”

Just then, General Leia ducked into the map room. “Nothing like the Chronomian Mortars has existed in this millennia. They were built to protect this system and legend says they could strike a target ten lightyears away.”

That got his attention. “They could wipe out a convoy without showing a broadside in the same sector.”

“Why aren’t the First Order up in these digs?” Poe wondered, looking at the planets. “These are pretty habitable and fairly underpopulated from what I can tell.”

“They’re spread pretty thin,” Leia pointed out. “Not as thin as us, obviously, but Kylo Ren isn’t about to risk getting his entire fleet in the way of one of these mortars just so he can nose around. He’ll come himself.”

Poe frowned at her. “How can you be sure?”

She hesitated for a beat, and then fixed her dark, empathetic eyes on him. “Instinct.”

Finn took her meaning, but knew better than to risk her displeasure. He hardly known the woman a month and thought that she was beginning to look frail. Aside from her ordeal in the vacuum of space, the deaths of Han and Luke seemed to tell on her more than ever. And, he supposed, her son Ben, who was worse than dead. How could one person survive all that loss?

She seemed to sense his thoughts, and smiled sadly at him. Even as he smiled back, the burn between his shoulder blades itched. They had left him to recover lying on his back, so the shiny lightsaber scar was tight and unforgiving whenever he flexed the wrong way. He knew from his brief time in the stormtrooper corp that Snoke’s apprentice had built his weapon himself, and added some kind of diffused interrupter to add totally unnecessary serration.

The medics told him after he woke up that it was likely that modification that had saved his spine from being cut down the middle. The diffuser may have made the wound more painful than a clean cut, but dispersion over a wider surface area meant that it did not fully penetrate deep enough to kill him.

Even so. He’d like to give that guy a big fat dose of his own poisonous medicine. Suddenly something flashed across the porthole, and an X-Wing he’d never seen before zipped past the cruiser. Rey waved to him from under the canopy, and performed a silly barrel roll before turning her wings for the shuttle bay.

A minute later she was in the map room, clasping hands with Poe and Leia. He smiled and opened his arms for her, but as she drew closer, he saw that she was in a ragged condition. Under her flight suit, her clothes were torn, bloodied and burnt. There was a bruise across the lower half of her face. He hugged her gently, and wanted to ask her about her injuries, but realized he wanted to do that in private.

“You look like hell, kiddo,” Poe observed without too much irony.

“Yeah,” she said, looking down at herself. “I went to tidy things up at the island and noticed Master Luke’s old bird a hundred feet under the water, so I figured I…”

She shrugged, and smiled, lifting her hands to demonstrate. Poe looked impressed, but Leia caught Finn’s eye and he felt a current of apprehension.

“I’m going to jump into the mod. Then rations?” She looked at Finn like she was waiting for his approval.

He nodded her on. “I’ll meet you in the galley.”

\--

It didn’t take that long to wash off the residue of her time on Ahch-To with her worst enemy, but Rey lingered in the shower module. The _Falcon_ (her _Falcon_ , she had to remind herself) was docked in the freighter’s ship bay, but it didn’t have a nice unit like the crew quarters did. It used recycled sterilized water of course, but it was hot. The reservoir constantly conducted heat from the engines, making it possible for her to stay under the shower for as long as she wanted.

When they’d told her their plans to try and intercept him in the Chronomian System, she’d played it off with enthusiasm. Revenge, yeah. We’ll lick the bastard this time.

“I’m going to be a killer or a corpse,” she told the Fates. “I hope that satisfies you.”

“That took a long time,” Finn said when she showed up at the fold out table in the small but comfortable galley.

“Oh, yeah, I was really gross.”

“I mean getting back here.”

“Oh. Well, finding you took some work. The cloaking system is pretty good on this beast.”

His kind brown eyes held her for a moment. “Did you really get those injuries fixing up that old fighter? Because I gotta tell you, Rey, I’ve seen your work before.”

She bit her lip. “Do you promise not to tell anyone?

“Of course. You can tell me anything.”

“I went there to meet...well...a teacher.”

He frowned at her, but then indicated for her to go on.

“Not a Jedi. Nothing like that. A practitioner of lightsaber battle. He offered to train me if I would help him repair some of his collection.”

She held up her arms to show the burns where Kylo Ren’s nonlethal but still very painful blade had caught her off guard.

“There’s a learning curve.”

“Wow,” Finn said. “Why is it such a big secret?”

She could tell he believed her, and was grateful that she didn’t have to use the Force to deceive him. "Big bounty on his head.”

“Yeah?”

“Massive.”

He stuck a piece of dried fish in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Huh.”

After a while, she told him she was tired. Leia, who was in the galley making herself a cup of tea, offered to show her the way to her personal quarters. Rey followed the august general gratefully. They came to a door which opened on a reasonably spacious cabin. The exterior wall was mostly window, giving Rey a full view of the star scape, along with the other fighters flanking the freighter.

“Let’s talk,” Leia said, indicating the narrow bunk. Rey, suddenly nervous, followed her in and sat down. Leia sipped her tea and shut the door, sitting down on the seat that unfolded behind it.

“I hope you gave as good as you got,” she said, indicating Rey’s beaten hide.

Rey gulped. She tried to smile through her blush as though that would cover any number of possible answers to her general’s inquiry.

“He’s all over you, Rey,” she said. Not judging, just observing. “I trust you know what a dangerous game you’re playing.”

Rey took a deep breath, parking both of her hands under her thighs so she wouldn’t start wringing them. “It wasn’t a path I planned.”

“Do you love him?”

The question shocked her, but she supposed it shouldn’t have. “I...don’t know.”

“I do,” Leia said with no trace of apology. “What little there is of him left inside that Dark distortion. And there is something.”

Suddenly she wanted to grip the old woman’s hands, to hold them tight. “I tried. If you think there’s any way-”

Leia sighed. “If he were here now, he would say and he’d be right- you can’t incentivize redemption. Either he wants it or he doesn’t.”

Rey didn’t know what to say. Incentivize how? With her body? Her love? The only thing that she had that he really wanted was the power of the Vinculum.

Leia shifted. “I’m going to reveal something and ask you to keep it to yourself as long as possible.”

In that instant Rey heard it- the arrhythmic beating of her aged heart. Each beat was just a little slower, a little behind the previous one. She looked into Leia’s eyes and the fear must have shown on her face.

“If I go, then I go,” she said, not a quiver in her voice. “A week, a year. You can try using that as bait if you think it’ll work, but even when he was Ben he hated it when anyone made him feel guilty for not...understanding emotion easily.”

She nodded. “I don’t think so either.”

“If I don’t go first... If you face him....”

“General.”

Now she did struggle, fighting her age and the grief that weighed her down. With a deep sigh, she stood and pulled the door open.

“If you can’t bring him back a prisoner, bring back something I can bury.”


	3. The Chase

The medic module had done its work, repairing the zygomatic fracture and the split in his lip. There wasn’t much to be done for the lightsaber blow he’d taken across the chest. It was more or less healed, but tender. He wanted very much to erase all evidence of Rey from his body, but he had neither time nor much interest in being touched any further by human or robotic hands.

He waved off the medic unit, which disappeared out the door without a sound. He showered quickly, dried off his body and his hair, and dressed in a fresh doublet. The face that looked out of his reflection was the one he knew. Even the facial scar was becoming familiar, if a humbling reminder of beginner’s luck. He’d given her a few of her own for her trouble, each one a demonstration of his skill. She wouldn’t be able to wash those off any time soon.

That should have given him satisfaction, but all it did was make his throat tight. He straightened his collar, lifted his cloak over his shoulder and fastened it.

“Tell Hux to be on the Operation Deck,” he ordered the sentry without a glance. As yet he had not considered the addition of any tail or personal body guard. It seemed superfluous, especially as he considered the complete ineffectiveness of Snoke’s Imperial Guard. He almost smiled as he remembered how delicious it had been to feel Rey at his back in that fight. Then he felt a twitch in the back of his neck and fought down the desire to vivisect a passing stormtrooper patrol.

They seemed to sense his mood because they stepped to and moved out of his immediate reach as fast as they could without making it too obvious. He moved on, reaching the Ops Deck without encountering anyone else.

General Hux was waiting for him. The schematic for the Chronomiam System hovered on the hologram table, the Chronomiam Silos highlighted on their respective moons.

“Lord Ren. I hope I didn’t presume…” he indicated the array. Kylo Ren thought very seriously about telekinetically mashing the general’s arch little face into one of the overhead buttresses until his skull popped like a Porg egg.

“Your instincts were correct, general.”

Hux’s smile was waxen. “To pick up where we left off, we believe that at least one of the silos has operational potentiality. If we act quickly, we should be able to form a defensive position around it.”

“No,” Kylo Ren said shortly, gripping the curved edge of the holotable and bending over the image. “The rebels are aware of it and are en route there now. They’re weak, but they’d make it there days before us, and there is one among them...who is skilled enough to bring the weapon back online.”

Hux frowned. “How do you know this?”

Kylo Ren looked up, and straightened slowly. “You forget yourself.”

“Yes, of course, I merely-”

“It is enough that I know,” he snarled, making the hologram ripple from his anger. Hux straightened as though at inspection, his usual posture whenever he felt the imminent threat of physical chastisement.

“My apologies, sir. Please let me know how I can best be of service to your aims.”

More annoyed that mollified, Kylo Ren refocused on the task. “We take this ship. We cut our fighter complement in half to increase our chances of reaching the silo before the Resistance. We do the same with our foot, there’s no place to put them on that moon.”

“I merely want to ask for confirmation…” Hux began cautiously.

Kylo Ren made a beckoning gesture for him to continue, which made the general flinch.

Hux lifted his head and met his eyes. “We are making this assault with half our aerial and infantry strength?”

“If you follow my orders and if you perform the simple tasks I have set you, then we will not be making an assault at all. We will gain our objective through stealth.”

Hux blinked. “Stealth?”

“Yes, idiot!” Kylo Ren burst out. “Stealth. Covert action in order to gain advantage over an unsuspecting opponent, one that I might add, has a head start of forty-two hours. Get to your post before I _demote you to cadaver_.”

Hux didn’t need to be told twice. He and his attendants beat a retreat out the door. Even as he went, Kylo Ren caught a full stream of consciousness from his unprotected mind.

_-on the island doing the who knows what for nearly three days, but it’s my fault? And what is this stealth nonsense, subterfuge is damned rebel strategy. How I never thought I’d ever feel nostalgic for Snoke._

Unable to contain himself, Kylo Ren slapped the air with his hand and sent the Hux flying like a rag doll, stopping his trajectory with a particularly angled piece of bulkhead. It impacted the general’s solar plexus, and he slid down to the floor and lay on his back, trying to get his wind back. His attendants backed away.

Kylo Ren stood over the general as he wheezed. “If you want to subvert my leadership, I advise you to think more quietly.”

Then he stepped over his gasping inferior and went into his bridge. As he sat down in the captain’s chair, he had to admit that he felt a little better. He even considered that once he put off half the _Reaper_ ’s stormtrooper unit, the reduction in rank and file would gut Hux’s support. He might just have Hux tossed out the ventral airlock.

Then he had an even better idea.

\--

“Sir, I am not only uncertain of my possible utility on this mission, but I must admit I may even be a liability.”

Kylo Ren put a hand on Hux’s shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. Even through the layers of trim First Order fur livery, he could feel the man shaking. It might have been from Ysoriam’s cold, which was the dull penetrating kind that was common to many moons. They were on the west side of the night line, near where the entrance to the colossal, mind-bendingly large silo was likely to be.

He had made the decision of landing the ship on the night time side of the moon. There was very little here besides sparse vegetation and sinkholes, the latter of which was clearly the result of the extensive underground works. Days were short and nights were long on Ysoriam, and the _Reaper_ would be nearly invisible from above or from ground level, and was below the reach of shipboard sensors.

He pulled his cloak about him and beckoned to his little retinue. Out of the corner of his eye he saw what he expected to see. In the distance, a small troop of tiny figures fought their way through thorny brush, making towards the northern entrance. He led his party a few more paces before coming to a halt.

He closed his eyes, reaching out with the Force. As easily as breathing, his mind uncovered the passageway beneath their feet, along with the ancient code procedure and the console disguised as a boulder. Under ordinary circumstances, even at his best, an investigation of that depth would have taken ten minutes or more. It had come to him in less than a second.

_Yes, she’s here._

He wouldn’t be able to conceal himself for much longer. The instant she used her powers, she’d know he was close by. Would she panic, or would she stand firm?

_Come and get me, murderer._

It rang through his head, and he laughed quietly, a choked little chuckle. Hux looked at him, genuine terror in his eyes.

“This way,” Kylo Ren said, beckoning. A door, layered over with dusty rock, slid open in the ground, revealing a rusted, steep staircase. He beckoned for Hux to go before him, and turned to the stormtroopers. “Go back to the ship. When I signal, destroy the freighter and the escort. I’ll deal with anyone who runs.”

“Sir, they outnumber us,” Hux hissed, watching his only protection march away.

Kylo Ren ignored him. He motioned for a halt, and put his lips to his mouth for silence. The corridor was narrow, lined with rusted wires and heavy cabling. Further through, the corridor stretched out into a chasm a hundred yards in length- the silo itself. Inside it was criss-crossed with gangways, rising in a spiral pattern from the base to the mouth. Each of the gangways terminated in the centre in a steel ring, each ring forming a tube that was wide enough to fly a tie-fighter through.

In spite of himself, Hux was also distracted by the sight, the sheer scale, illuminated by dusty light that streamed down from the distant opening. The silo was tall enough that it caught the thin dawn hours before it would reach them down at this level.

“You intend to activate the weapon personally?” he asked. Then remembered. “Sir?”

Kylo Ren waved a finger at him, then used the Force to grab his general’s face and lock his upper and lower mandible together. He stopped making noise at once, and Ren had to remember not to dislocate his whole lower jaw. Detail work required adjustment when the Vinculum was in play.

He waited, and waited, and then released his hapless officer. “Go out there and start shooting at anything that moves.”

Hux scrambled to obey, and to get as far away from him as possible. Just as well. Kylo Ren had no doubt that, given the advantage of Rey’s presence, he could have this thing up and running as easily as replacing a fuse, but the closer she came, the less the mission interested him. The Chronomian Mortar was an almost superlative weapon, but the Vinculum defied quantification.

_There is no such thing as too much power._


	4. Demigods

Finn insisted on going out first. The corridor behind him was a tight squeeze, so Rey and Chewie were wedged in single file behind him. Blaster in front of his face, he searched the dim, awesome structure for any sign of movement. Then, one level below them at a 20 degree angle, blaster fire. It missed him by a mile, and the angle of the gangways gave him some cover from beneath, but the sound it made as it streaked through the silo echoed like a screech.

He turned over his shoulder to shout at Rey. “Below us!”

“How many?” she shouted back.

Finn couldn’t tell. He could see a pale face above First Order cold weather gear, and realized it was a face he knew.

“Hux!”

“Traitor!”

Neither of them taking safety much into account, they both hooked their elbows over the guard rails and leaned out to get a clear shot.

“Careful!” Rey screamed when the rusted rail bent slightly under Finn’s weight.

Blaster fire shrieked up and down, each burst missing their intended target by less each time. Finally Finn had it. He wedged the blaster in his teeth, dropped to his stomach and hooked his foot on one of the metal rail posts. He swung out, using both hands to stabilize himself, and then caught up the blaster in his right hand.

Hux’s wide eyes looked directly into his as Finn let fly, clipping his former general on the shoulder and sending him to his knees. Blood gushed from the wound, and he groaned.

 _Why is he here all by himself?_ Finn wondered.

“He’s not,” Rey said as she bent down next to him. Her voice was quivering. From fear?

“Master,” Hux begged.

Finn looked up, and saw tall frame, black clad, black cowled form of Kylo Ren as he walked out on to the gangway. Without thinking, Finn raised his weapon and opened his mouth to scream Ren’s name when Rey clapped her hand over his mouth.

“Don’t.”

With strength that dwarfed his, she dragged him back over the edge and motioned for Chewie to go back and get help. From where she held him pinned, he still had a sliver of vantage.

Kylo Ren knelt down next to his former rival, and did something that Finn had never seen before, and that struck him through with terror. Ren smiled, a wide and heartfelt smile.

Hux saw it, too. Immediately he began to struggle, trying to pull himself away from Ren.

“No,” he gasped. “No! I served you well!”

“Come on, Armitage," Ren said amiably. "Every day since I became an apprentice to Snoke, you wrote me off as an undisciplined child with a surfeit of power, and every day you failed to take your opportunity. Did you think I would forget that?”

Hux looked desperately for a way to escape, but he was immobilized on his right side, his arm uselessly hanging. His wide, bloodshot eyes met Finn’s as he stared over the lip of the platform.

Kylo Ren’s eyes followed his gaze, and that smile turned venomous. Of course he knew they were there.

With alarming speed and astonishing strength, he seized the back of Hux’s coat and dragged the general bodily along with him up into the air, coming to rest easily on the gangway less than ten feet from where Finn and Rey were scrambling to get to their feet. Ren tossed Hux down before him as though weighed less than air.

Finn instinctively tried to keep Rey behind him as he faced his enemy, knowing in his heart that Ren would go through him like a sword through smoke. His face hardened, his smile turned brittle, and he focused his attention completely on Finn, ignoring the slowly dying, whimpering Hux at his feet.

_You care for her. That’s endearing._

“Finn, get out of my way,” Rey said urgently. “You can’t face him.”

_You’re uncommonly clever for a stormtrooper. Listen to her._

Finn was about to open his mouth, to tell Ren to get the hell out of his brain, but Rey put her hand on his shoulder and moved around him as though his bulk was no obstacle at all. Fearless, slender and without an ounce of remorse on her beautiful face, she stood before Kylo Ren, Luke Skywalker’s repaired lightsaber in her hand, waiting to be ignited.

“I missed you,” he said with neither mockery nor irony. Finn felt the first quiver of something...some dawning comprehension.  

“I don’t want to do this,” she said, flexing her grip on her weapon. “I know you came here for me. Turn around and walk out of here.”

Finn suddenly felt a horrible sinking feeling in his chest, as though his heart was draining of blood. Hux, weak and nearly expired as he was, saw it too.

“You,” he gasped, looking back at Ren. “The girl. That’s why you went to Ahch-To! That’s why you were gone for three days. For her!”

Finn didn’t even try to stop his knees from going out from under him. He looked Rey, pleading, desperate for it not to be true.

“Finn…” she looked at him with such sadness. 

Thinking he might, just might, be able to throw himself into the void and take Kylo Ren with him, he seized the railing and tried to get to his feet, but it bent and sent him forward on his hands and knees.

Even as he was struggling to get back to his feet, through Rey’s legs he could see Hux, his face livid, the last of his breath filling his lungs.

“TRAITOR,” he screamed at Kylo Ren, who ignored him completely, until he turned to Rey and screamed, “TRAITOR’S WHORE!”

What happened next frightened Finn more than any of the events preceding it. It frightened him more than anything he had ever seen.

In perfect simultaneity, both Rey and Kylo Ren turned their their unblinking eyes on Hux’s face. Then they both jerked their heads to the side. Hux’s neck snapped so violently that the flesh split and the bones of his neck broke through the skin. Finn choked, putting his hand over his mouth and taking a step back. Kylo Ren used his foot to nudge the general off the edge, and his body hit every single one of the spiral gangways on the way down.

Rey, shaking off the horrible possession or whatever it was, turned to Finn and reached out. He wanted to back away, to run even, but she took his arm and looked him in the eye.

“I loved you almost the moment I met you and I will love you until I die," she told him. "That might be now.”

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. He begged. “Rey, don’t do this.”

_I have to do this. There is no one else._

“Please go,” she pleaded.

He felt like he’d been kicked. “No. You’ll have to make me.”

“I don’t want to make you.”

He looked out at Kylo Ren who looked back with predatory interest. He was not jealous or even possessive. He was merely amused at Finn’s pain.

“Then kill him,” Finn said. “Kill him, and we’ll leave here together.”

Rey’s eyes were full of tears as she kissed him, the first time she had ever kissed him. “I’ll do my best.”

“Enough,” Kylo Ren said. His lightsaber exploded into life, frying every particle of dust it came into contact with and creating a glow red halo that illuminated his hateful eyes. It also picked out the diagonal scar in high relief. Seeing it made Finn hopeful.

Rey squeezed his hand. He wanted to follow her, to help, but when he tried to move closer, a gentle barrier held him at bay. He could only watch, and wait, and pray.

Rey ignited her lightsaber, the blue beam as slender and graceful as she was. Nimble as a deer, she paced the four foot width of gangway she had to work with, and the five feet before her where it terminated in the broad ring, just air beneath. Across the ring, Kylo Ren watched her hungrily, his blade sizzling.

“One more chance, Rey,” he called to her. “Come to me. This galaxy, every galaxy belongs to us. No more war. No more suffering. Just order, and peace.”

She whirled her blade lazily at her side. “Your mother Leia misses you. She’s ailing, Ben. She gave me a mission. Bring you home to her, or bring enough of you to bury.”

“That is so like her,” he said, not quite able to suppress a note of affection.

“Come on, Ben,” Finn shouted on pure impulse. “Go back to your mother!”

Kylo Ren’s face was so twisted by hate he knew instantly he’d made a mistake. Then he felt a hand around his throat- not a hand, a vice, crushing his windpipe.

Rey screamed, raising her blade and launching herself at Kylo Ren. Finn felt the choke subside, and he gasped. Through watery eyes he watched as Ren caught the blow on his blade and turned it away from himself. He raised his hand to throw Rey back but she was equal to it. Instead of falling, she reversed the direction of her energy and flipped up, catching the lip of the ring twenty feet above in one hand.

She held herself straight up and down with one hand, her lightsaber extended from the other, pointed down at her opponent. Kylo Ren looked up at her, and let out a little “heh”. He shrugged off his cowl, shook out his shoulders, and waited for her attack.

She lunged through the air, taking his parry and whipping her wrist around so that his blade was battered to the side. He just missed getting crisped in the face by ducking under her blow. She leaped straight up again, the Force carrying her up through the ring away from his upward strike. Then she did something so unconventional Finn almost laughed. She waited for him to lose patience and come after her, and when he did, she kicked him full in the face.

He reeled and then got his feet under him, touching the blood from his now broken nose. He extended his lightsaber and pointed it her.

“Keep this up, and you will die today.”

“Then come get me, Ben,” she taunted. “I could swear you were tougher on Ahch-To. Did you go soft after I left you behind?”

“Tell your little pet how soft I am,” he taunted back. “Maybe he would like to hear about that. How about it, Finn?”

“Leave him alone!” she screamed, and Finn heard a jangled note of fear in her voice.

_Sound. Fire. Lightsabers. He burns her once, twice- four times. She gets him across the chest. Oh god, he can hear them both, the memories- gleefully they cut at each other. He’s been in her head since she cut him down on the Starkiller Base. That long. Now she was kissing him. Now they were fighting each other in other ways._

_Will you ever sleep through the night without longing for one more contest?_

_I know Ben’s in there. I know I can bring him back if I just love him_ _but how can I love him when_ _everyone who loves him dies._

_I will be alone until I die, alone forever in the darkness, without peer or friend or partner if she leaves me. There is no one else._

_It’s called a Vinculum. A Force bond so powerful it trebles, quadruples the power of the two beings connected by it._

Lightning.

Lightning. Here in the silo. Finn, shaken out of the whirlwind of memories woke to discover an actual whirlwind brewing in the cavernous tunnel. Lightning arced from points of conductive metal. And Rey…she was holding him off as best she could, but her conviction was vulnerable to attack by his unscrupulous hatred. They both knew Kylo Ren could do that- could hate as he loved, and execute the object of that conflict.

“Rey!” Finn screamed, but the turbulence in the air carried his voice away. He could only watch, still bound by her protection. “Rey!”

She battered at Ren’s blade, but he blocked each of her attacks, just waiting, waiting for an opening, for her to get careless.

“Kill him!” Finn screamed.

Then- there. The way to his heart was opened as he raised his blade. She could do it- she could spear him, and then take the blow to her neck. Both of them would die.

_It would be right. It would be good. We would be free._

Lighting surged, striking so near to Finn that he felt its heat. His ears rang, the interior of the silo becoming pressurized. It was as if he were watching the two of them, lovers, warriors, victims of a capricious Force, in slow motion. Then, unbelievably, both lightsaber handles turned. Not because their wielders had changed their course, but of their own accord, dragging the hands holding them along.

Then, faster than the eye could see, the blades crashed together. There was a huge shower of violet sparks where they connected and then- something more powerful. A white orb of light formed at the point of contact. Finn tried to shield his eyes, but it was expanding at a lightning fast rate. The combatants were consumed as it exploded soundlessly outward, engulfing Finn in blinding white light, and then-

Absolute silence.

 


	5. Choices

_Order them to stop firing! There’s still time to save the fleet! Ben…?_

_It’s time to let old things die. Snoke. Skywalker. The Sith. The Jedi. The Rebels. Let it all die. Rey, I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy._

_Don’t do this. Please don’t go this way._

_No, you’re still holding on! Let go! Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known, and you’ve just hidden it away? You know the truth. Say it. Say it._

_They were nobody._

_Just some filthy junk traders. Sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead, in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert. You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You’re nothing. But not to me. Join me. Please._

_She raises her hand._

_She is supposed to grab the lightsaber. It is supposed to explode between them, sending them flying just as the cruiser rips through the ship. Finn remembers that feeling in his bones._

_But instead...instead…._

_Two things happen at the same time. Finn can't process both, but his brain deconstructs them and puts them into some kind of order. Her voice turns his head, and he can see them again, there together, no matter what direction he looks in. Only in this version, they aren’t saying the same words._

_“Take my hand instead. Come home. Your mother loves you, she still believes-”_

_“That I can be Ben Solo again?” He laughs and it is bile bitter. “Redemption can’t be incentivized, Rey. You have to want to atone.”_

_“Don’t you?”_

_He takes a breath. “If you ask it of me, I will come for your sake. I can’t bear it otherwise. I can’t.”_

_“For my sake, then. Come now!”_

_A voice from behind Finn causes him to whip around._

_“You know the truth. Say it-” then softer. “Say it.”_

_“They were nobody.”_

_“They sold you off for drinking money. You have no place in this story. You come from nothing. You’re nothing. But not to me. Join me. Please.”_

_Don’t, Rey, he thinks. But she is broken. Her heart is crushed and she wants to die, or sleep, or stop being Rey. Anything to quell the years of scratching on walls, of following footprints in the sand, of believing someone, somewhere loves her._

_I love you, he says to the broken girl, but she can’t hear him. The cruiser is about to jump, but they don’t see it._

_She takes his Dark hand, her small delicate fingers fitting well into his gloved palm._

_“How?” Finn screams, unable to stop what is happening._

_And then, inexplicably, he hears his own voice, and turns to see himself watching their backs in the other direction as they hurry towards Snoke’s secret escape entrance._ _Kylo Ren leaves behind his former life in the First Order and follows Rey._

_All Finn wants to know is “why?”_


	6. A New Order

They came to at the same time, but Kylo Ren recovered himself first. He heard a soft moan, and saw that Rey was injured. A jagged piece of Red Guard helmet had penetrated at least two inches into her flank, and she was bleeding heavily. It was exactly the spot where he’d taken the plasma shell. He didn’t envy her the wound, but at least her scar would be marginally more attractive than the twisted mass of shiny burn that still pulled at him any time he turned at the waist.

He lifted her easily, detecting the pounding of footsteps outside in the entrance corridor. Rey, seemingly uninterested in being alive, turned her face into his chest. He could feel the fevered heat of her brow, and wondered how, between her and the remains of the vivisected Snoke, he was going to facilitate this coup.

Hux burst in, followed by his bodyguard. He led, as usual, with his mouth, rattling off damage, casualties, contingencies. By the time he raised his eyes from their respectful downcast position, he’d already promised Snoke’s dead body he would recover the situation.  
His guard, two armed men with no particular affiliation had stared at Kylo Ren and his burden for the full thirty seconds of Hux’s bleating.

Hux turned his eyes on him, triumph in them. At first, Kylo Ren had considered psychic manipulation, but he was almost blown and it wasn’t a permanent fix. There was really only one permanent fix. But he decided to let the general say what they would all whisper anyway. The two body guards were the real concern, and they didn’t seem inclined to act either way without direct orders.

_Let old things die._

“Traitor!” Hux accused. Then he looked to the girl in his arms. “Traitor’s whore.”

He felt Rey, shift in his arms, turning her sweating face to look at Hux. He felt a quiver run through her, and looked up to see Hux dropping to his knees, clutching desperately at his collar, clawing at his own neck. His face turned red. It became progressively darker. His eyes flooded with blood as his capillaries burst. Finally, after an agonizing struggle, he collapsed, twitched, and then moved no more.

Rey, unconcerned with her efforts, turned her face back inwards, her brow even hotter than before. He hefted her, feeling her skin burning up, then turned his attention to the guards. Without a second’s hesitation, they dropped to their knees before him.

“Please don’t punish us, Supreme Leader.”

Supreme leader. He supposed it would do, but then...

“You’re mine. Stay loyal and you will rise. Betray me and I’ll tear you apart from the inside out.”

“Yes, Leader.”

“Not that,” he said, wetting his lips. “Let’s make it simpler. Address me as Lord Ren. Honour my authority and keep faith, and we can avoid these mistakes in the future.”

He gave them instructions to evacuate the destroyers that had been cut down by the jump, and move all materiel, infantry and fighters to the remaining star destroyers. He carried Rey himself to the _Reaper_ , which had experienced no lasting harm. She was fully unconscious now, limp in his arms and weakening from loss of blood. It stained his doublet and his breeches, and worried him exceedingly in way he was not accustomed to.

Even in the disarray, word travelled. When he reached the exterior hatch of the graceful black cruiser, his first mate bowed his head respectfully.

“She’s fuelled and ready, Lord Ren.”

“Good. Get us to light speed immediately. We can’t do anything with the fleet in this condition and we need to regroup.”

He was aware that he did not _need_ to explain his orders, but he needed his own crew behind him more than all of the stormtroopers in Phasma’s battalion. He held his prize close and went straight to the medical bay.

\--

Rey woke up under dim lights. She felt weak and shaky, and wasn’t fully convinced of events. She had given herself up with the intention of dying in some manner or other. Either in a space battle, or by execution, or whatever means Kylo Ren decided to dream up for her after his little ploy. So she was a little surprised and even a little disappointed not to be dead.

Her side ached, and she could feel the minute stitches where the red metal had punctured her. The spider medics must have done their work well, because she wasn’t bleeding through her bandage. She winced when she tried to sit up and her wrist itched where the saline line had gone into it. She was a little dizzy, but her vision was returning and she was thirsty.

Food and drink had been placed for her an arms length. Real food, not SREs. Simple, just dried fruit, nuts and some hard cheese, along with the juice of some fruit she didn’t recognize. It was light and astringent, and didn’t make her immediately nauseous. She was suspicious of this treatment, but her body didn’t care. She ate slowly, but felt incrementally better.

“You look much better,” said a voice, mild but deep enough to be sonorous. Kylo Ren perched on to the slab next to hers.

“You didn’t kill me,” she said matter of factly, almost annoyed.

“Was that your expectation?”

She put a piece of fruit in her mouth, chewed it contemplatively. “More than conquering the galaxy with you.”

“You may have no choice about that,” he said wryly. “One or more of the destroyers went off course after we left.”

She thought about it. “That’s a considerable mutiny.”

“Badly led. Internal strife is more difficult to plan around than an external foe.”

“You might get both,” she observed.

“Not with your help. What you did to Hux is all my crew is talking about.”

Her attention was piqued. “Your crew? What ship is this?”

“My personal battlecruiser, the _Reaper_.”

She rolled her eyes at that, unable to stop herself. “You should stow the benevolent act, Kylo Ren. It doesn’t suit you.”

His eyes rested on her, evaluative, calm. They reminded her of one of the great sand cats of Jakku, the kind that stalked you for miles and ambushed you from thin air. He looked like he was deciding whether to feast on her, or rub against her legs.

“I could be kind to you,” he said finally. “Perhaps it is the burden of the office I’ve assumed that kindness is an impossible contradiction to leadership, but I could be kind to _you_ , Rey.”

_You’re nothing, but not to me._

“Don’t try to lead me anywhere,” she told him quietly. “Or I will kill you and send what’s left of you back to Leia to bury.”

The threat was not a casual one, but she said it kindly. At first he wasn’t sure how to react. He was being surprisingly careful with her, given the number of times he’d tried to run her through, hack off her limbs or take her head off. He had, of course, saved her life. She thought about Snoke’s body sliding apart, and decided that perhaps she might attempt to trust him after all. If he did murder her, well, she was right back where she’d started anyway.

“You aren’t going to make this easy,” he said finally, rising to his feet. He was so tall that she felt like a child as she looked up at him. When he bent to kiss her forehead, she couldn’t help but breathe him in- he smelled of metal, smoke, and something deeper. Coppery, like blood but not exactly- just a tang in his sweat that filled her nose with the memory. The memory of their first real face-to-face meeting.

She looked up at him, knew that he had heard that memory. She turned her head to look at him more clearly, trying to draw his thoughts from him, but he was too skilled at shielding them.  
  
_You know I can take whatever I want._

“You can try,” she murmured.

“I don’t have to,” he said as he rose and walked towards the doors. “I have it. And if you change your mind, then I will regretfully but meticulously kill you.”

She sat up fully now, feeling a frisson of tension across her back. It wasn’t an idle remark, nor a threat, just a very simple statement of the fact. She was in his power and at his mercy. The smallest glimmer of fear raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck. He paused at the doors, and looked at her.

“I will speak with you when you are recovered.”


	7. False Dawn

“We should take the Silencer and the Upsilon both.” Kylo Ren said as they entered Snoke’s personal hangar. “You pilot the starfighter.”

Rey followed close behind, hoping that he wasn’t leading her into a trap. The hangar was aft and slung underneath the ship, containing a small escort complement of tie fighters, Kylo Ren’s Silencer, and the Upsilon command shuttle. The impact from the shuttle's jump had sent everything sliding to the side, but for the most part the hangar had been shielded by its kilometric distance from the point of impact. 

“No,” Rey said, looking between the two. She hadn’t lingered to see where the shuttles had gone, but was sure they would take advantage of the chaos to escape to hyperspace. “We take the Upsilon.”

He laughed. “You still don’t trust me?”

She threw him a look, and made for the winged shuttle. She could feel him fuming, and he stepped out in front of her before she could stop him. He lifted a comm to his mouth and she felt a sudden stab of fear that he meant to betray her.

“Upsilon, get fuel up  and prepare for lightspeed.”

The thing came to life all of a sudden, lights illuminating the shiny black floor of the hangar.

“How many?” she asked.

“Three,” he said without hesitation. “Feel for them.”

Yes, three. She could picture them. One slender woman, three men, all humanoid like the rest of the First Order. The girl was young, perhaps Rey’s age, while the men were both of an age with their commander. They worked efficiently, and lowered the ramp as they approached. Rey stayed behind Kylo Ren, deciding it was wiser that they not see her straight away.

Ren spoke again into the comm. “At attention.”

And like ducks in a row, they lined up outside the shuttle, backs straight. Ren thought she might have seen the girl before, with her short, straight dark hair and her elongated eyes. Perhaps after she had been captured at Takodana, though she had nothing more than flashes from that voyage.

The girl had seen her before, it seemed, for she locked eyes with her, then frowned, then looked to her master. “Sir, isn’t that the rebel who-”

Rey expected him to chastise the officer. She did not expect what happened next as Kylo Ren hip checked her to the side to throw her off balance, and his red lightsaber flared into life. The instant she realized what he meant to do, she was unable to do anything but scream.

It joined the cries of the crew as Kylo Ren slashed through them, separating arms from torsos, cutting a wide swath of death through the hapless victims. Blood sizzled as he brought his blade in an upward arc, starting with the man closest to him, running diagonally up across his fellow and culminating at the top of the girl’s head. Her skull separated and fell away in halves, exactly the way Snoke’s body had slid apart.

“Why did you do that!” she screamed at him, her horrified eyes taking in the pile of body parts still pumping blood. “We could have-”

“No,” he said calmly, stepping over them on to the ramp. “The instant they saw you, they had to die. Our only safety lies in ensuring the First Order knows as little as possible about either of us.”

“I could have made them believe-”

“Come now,” he said. “Or I leave you here.”

She had no choice but to follow, forcing down the desire to vomit. The ramp closed behind her, and she found herself in the cramped low slung bridge. Kylo Ren was already in the pilot’s seats, his hands flying gracefully across the console. The ship rose, and he turned it to face the hangar entry. Nothing but stars ahead of them.

He punched the hyperdrive. Rey had to grab hold of the back of the copilot’s chair as the acceleration shook her knees. Then the stars stretched out, streaked, and they were sucked out into the infinite ether.

“Sit down,” Kylo Ren said.

“No,” she responded, feeling sick. “I don’t want to get closer to you than I have to.”

“They were no one,” he said. “A supply officer, a first officer and a technician. Leave any one of them alive and the signature of this ship would instantly be on every data board on every planet for a hundred thousand lightyears.”

“We could have left them alive!” she countered. “We could have altered their memories, forced them to forget-”

Kylo Ren barked out a laugh. “You might as well have written “May the Force be With You” across the hangar walls.”

As much as she wanted to, she had nothing to deflect that. She didn’t know what to say. No, it was wrong? It was brutal? Would it had been better if they’d tossed them out an airlock or executed them via blaster? She decided she could either go insane or put these feelings away for the time being.

She sat down in the copilot’s chair and looked out at the streaky nothing. “They’ll think it was me. The First Order.”

He let out the smallest of sighs, tapping his gloved fingers on the edge of the console. “And if the Resistance ever hears of it, they’ll know it was me, not you. If that’s what concerns you.”

She wanted to open her mouth and say that no, that wasn’t her concern, but then she realized that she _was_ worried. Worried they might think she was a killer. A murderer. Her heart hurt at the thought, and then hurt even more that she could worry more about her losing her reputation than the way those people had just lost their lives.

“Familiarize yourself with the controls,” Kylo Ren said as he rose. “I’m going to rest. I’ll be in the stateroom if you need me.”

 _Don’t need me_ , his tone said. Without another word he was gone down the narrow corridor to the aft most doorway.

Rey didn’t need to familiarize herself with the controls. She knew every part in the Upsilon shuttle, and was reasonably confident she could build one from used parts. She found the autopilot and engaged it. She didn’t know where they were going, but she didn’t care. She fell asleep in the chair where she sat.

\--

Kylo Ren did not sleep for very long. He never slept for very long, but this dream was uncomfortable and vivid. He saw an island, the island from Rey’s own mind, green and made of rocky teeth that reached up into the sky like jagged spires. It was a cathedral formed by ancient volcanic action. Ahch-To, where Luke Skywalker still prowled and still nursed regrets. Nothing visible- darkness was falling on that side of the planet- but he could feel his old master’s mind.

_She’s something, isn’t she?_

He said nothing to that. He wanted to close this connection, to stop hearing Skywalker’s voice, but he was exhausted and vulnerable.

_I’m sorry it’s come to this. She’s going to break herself on you, trying to bring you back. Are you going to betray her as I betrayed you?_

_I betrayed no one. You raised your blade against your own blood long before I ever dreamed of this darkness._

_It doesn’t work like that, Ben._

He wanted to argue, but then he jerked awake. Sweat pricked on his brow. He pulled off his sweat soaked undershirt and tossed it aside, then made for the hygiene unit that was recessed behind the aft bulkhead. It was narrow, almost too small for a man of his size, and operated on an automated system that cleansed him from head to foot, then dried his skin and his hair while he stood there, unable to get comfortable or turn around.

The stateroom was small, fifteen feet across and twenty feet deep, but it was comfortable enough. The double bed folded up to show a desk console with a map display. He touched a button and a screen opened above his head, revealing a steel-bar reinforced canopy overhead. There was nothing to see except the long echoes of the star systems they were passing, but it still relieved the low slung closeness of the space.

Slowly, Kylo Ren dressed himself, pulling on his black doublet, his black breeches, his black gloves, his black boots. He dispensed with his cowl, it wasn’t practical in the Upsilon without inferiors there to mark its significance. Rey didn’t care, and he found that refreshing.

He left the stateroom and walked down the short run of steps. They made an angle where they met the main corridor and continued down to the barracks and the galley. Both were small, the barracks housing only four berths, meaning that the full complement of crew slept in shifts. The galley was also cramped. Only the crew and the first officer ever dined there- when he had occasion to eat while aboard the shuttle, he took his meals in his quarters. He searched for Rey in the cockpit, then turned his back on it and headed down the stairs.

At one end of the galley was the service module, flush to the wall. At the other end a running bench was built along the perimeter of the wall, circling a table that could accommodate six. It was there he found Rey, picking at an SRE. It was some kind of blood pudding and apparently her appetite wasn’t up to it.

He punched one of the buttons on the wall console and it spat out another package, which he tossed at her. “These are better.”

She caught it, and looked the label. “Burghand Rice and Tauntaun jerky."

“Doesn’t taste like much of anything except salt,” he said, dropping down across from her. “Just gives you the nutrients and proteins without complicating the experience.”

She shook it out, and slit it open, dumping it on to a plate. The rice was pressed into cakes which could be easily eaten with hands or utensil, and the strips of Tauntaun were a golden red. She took one and put her sharp little teeth in it, and chewed.

“Pretty good,” she said as she swallowed. “For carrion crow feed.”

He wanted to laugh but it caught in his chest. He smiled down at his knees, and then rearranged his face into something more relaxed.

“More than you’d get on Jakku.”

“Sometimes we got old Imperial SREs on Jakku,” she pointed out. “They were expensive.”

“You lived your life surviving in a junk desert,” he pointed out. “I lived my life on starships almost from the time I could walk. Food was never that interesting to me. Always something else to do.”

“It was the only interesting thing on Jakku,” she said, biting another piece off the strip. “Not starving to death was very interesting to us.”

  
She pushed the plate towards him. He tugged off his gloves and tucked them into his belt, then used his fingertips to gather some of the sticky rice. It struck him that he couldn’t remember the last time he had shared a meal with anyone at all. He didn’t like to remind his underlings that he was only human, subject to the needs of any human, and there was no intimate friend in his life that he cared to break bread with.

Looking across at Rey as she took another tearing bite off the jerky strip in a way that was both ridiculous and charming, he wondered if she was now his friend. Certainly they were connected, he felt that strongly. He wasn’t sure how or why the Force had done this. He had heard of it happening before, he just couldn’t remember where.

“Here,” he said, coming around to her side and taking one of the strips, “Like this.”

Using his hand, he warmed up the strip of flesh until it was more pliable. Then he tore it into smaller pieces, mixing it with a portion of the rice. Then he piled it on his pressed-together fingers and offered it to Rey.

She looked at him, not entirely sure what to do with this image. Her most fearsome enemy offering to feed her out of his own hand. Slowly, she curled her fingers around his and pulled them to her mouth, catching the little fluff of rice in her mouth, then letting of him just as quickly.  
He pulled back his hand to suck the grains of rice off his fingers, watching her with amusement.

Something trilled in the cabin. Everything on the table slid an inch or two as the ship came out of light speed, then stabilized. Rey stood up at once, and edged away from him around the other side of the table to get to the corridor. He followed close behind, and did not protest when she took the pilot’s chair, dropping down into the first officer chair and looking out over the vista of the rising planet.

Two suns, small but powerful, beat red gold light into the cockpit. The brightness was diffused by the cockpit glass, so it was possible to see their fiery detail even at this distance. He turned his attention to the planet, a world that was mostly aquatic from the looks of it, with two or three large continents and a swath of islands, some of which were populated and linked by bridges.

“Cirrus,” he said, doing some lightning fast calculations. “What are you up to, Rey?”

She charted a course for one of the islands. As they descended slowly into the atmosphere, the trees rose up to meet them. They were of colossal size, made of dark evergreen bows and smooth cream-coloured bark. At a guess, the trunks were on average between fifteen and thirty metres in diameter, graceful and stately. The Upsilon was dwarfed inside this forest, which appeared to be uninhabited.

Rey put down the ship gently and popped the hatch, making her way outside. The golden light was failing, but it still lingered in long dusty slats between the colossus trees. It was quiet, except for a small prelude of chirps and whistles. One of the birds gave a call that sang across the treetops and was picked up by another before it ended, creating a chain of sweet undulating notes. The singing pair subsided, and in the further distance another took up the song.

“It’s beautiful,” Rey said, looking up at the cathedral canopy.

He had to admit that it was, but he said nothing. Instead he looked down at her expectantly. “You have something in mind?”

She looked around. “The hyperdrive needs to cool down and we are next to out of fuel. Resupply here and then head to one of the moons where we’ll blend in better. Then rest, lie low. Maybe we change ships before we move on.”

“Move on?”

Rey didn’t answer, only beckoned him to follow her lead. She made her way back into the belly of the cruiser and made her way directly to the stateroom, battering the door open without a thought. He followed behind her, wondering what was in her mind, but she was keeping it locked from him.

She turned to him and looked him over. “Do you have anything that doesn’t scream “I’m here to burn down your village and take your cattle”?”

He tilted his head. “No.”

Annoyed, she opened the supply panel and riffled through curtains of black. Eventually she found his caul, and a lighter one for combat that she slipped over her own shoulders.

“Deploy the surface transport. We’ll see what the disposition of the city is.”

“If you’re so concerned about my being recognized, I could stay here,” he offered.

“No,” she said at once. “I need you to help me transport the fuel back here. Just...keep your cowl up.”

The slender transporter hovered, waiting for them. It was a model designed to work over land or short distances of water, and could hold a full complement of crew. He followed her into it and let her take the controls. In the distance, past the spray of islands, he could see the lights of Ciran shimmering, climbing to a great height. Rey turned the transport and set a course for the city.


	8. Dusk

Rey tooled around with a holographic schematic of the battlecruiser Reaper, the ship she was currently aboard. In terms of categorization it was beyond the pale of the First Order’s navy, and as far as she could tell, was of Kylo Ren’s unique design.

Of the existing ships she knew of it most resembled a heavily modified Upsilon shuttle, but only in that it had stabilizing wings. They were smaller and further back down along the Reaper’s sleek black hull. It had other winglike stabilizers just before the engines which both performed their intended task and housed laser canon. Above, a dorsal star cannon, below, a ventral star cannon. Two more sets of blasters were positioned underneath the nose.

Every extremity on the ship could be battened down against the hull to increase speed. The wings and the stabilizers could be deployed to increase maneuverability. And the matte black surface of the ship made it incredibly difficult to see in open space. She realized the purpose of this of this feature- most designers and commanders might overlook a visual detail in favour of cloaking and detection technologies, but the livery allowed the ship to work in night time terrestrial environments. It also gave it the ability to get in the sweet spot between the visual and motion detecting fields of ships a hundred times its size, and wreak havoc.

It was a sign of times that she both admired that application and wondered if she should consider it ominous. She shut down the schematic and rose from the holotable. The officer’s cabin Kylo Ren had given her was utilitarian, but reasonably comfortable and large. A window out on the emptiness of space took up most of the external wall and there was a fully fitted hygiene unit.

A trilling at the door made her jump almost out of her skin.

She needed a breath or two. “Come in.”

The woman who entered Rey’s quarters was petite, almost of a size with her. She was nervous, which put Rey at ease. She had gone from the sincere expectation of her own death into a world of confusion and anxiety, and if there was someone aboard this vicious machine that was more afraid than she was, that was a small comfort.

She was human, her eyes elongated, her black hair cut short and blunt. Rey couldn’t decipher the rank cuff on her grey lieutenant’s uniform, but her eyes were respectfully downcast.

“Mistress,” she said quickly. “I was sent to outfit you according to your wishes.”

Rey gave a sigh of exasperation. "Look at me and tell me your name like a normal person.” 

The woman blinked, and then raised her eyes. “I am Lieutenant Saelin Trinn, the Reaper’s supply officer.”

“I’m Rey,” Rey said simply. She didn’t know who else she was, but she certainly wasn’t anyone’s mistress. “Have you been stationed here for long?”

“Since the ship was christened two years ago. I maintain and supply all uniforms and armor, as well as act as personal tailor to the officers.”

“And what made you decide this was what you wanted to do with your life?”

Saelin looked at her, confused both by the question and why she was being asked.

“Well, I...my family is very poor, and my father was injured fighting in the galactic civil wars. I have been tailoring since I was a child, so I decided to join the First Order’s supply corp.”

“Let me guess,” Rey said heavily. She was very tired of everyone’s needful parent stories. “You send your earnings back to your home world so your family can live on them. When you’ve finished serving your term, you’ll use your pension to keep them out of debt and in drink.”

Saelin frowned at her, and Rey realized she had just violated the woman’s mind without intending to. She felt a stab of guilt.

“I’m sorry, Saelin,” Rey said, and meant it. “I’m bitter and you shouldn’t take me seriously.”

“No, mistress.”

“My name is Rey.”

“Yes, Mistress Rey.”

 _Oh save me._ “Just get on with it.”

It didn’t take long before Saelin returned with an assisting mouthless 3PO droid, clothing heaped over their arms. Apparently there was a fabrication module aboard. The Reaper housed some hundred personnel in addition to the small detachment of infantry and star pilots, and was very nearly self sustaining.

The girl held a black garment for her to try. It was quite similar to her normal tunic, though it was black, and was more clingy. Rey hesitated, but the moment she touched the fabric, she wanted to know what it felt like on her body. She shrugged off her old rags which were by now almost shreds, and pulled it on. t fell to mid thigh, just as her own tunic had, and conformed to her in a way that made her feel sleek and shadow-like.

Trinn held up a pair of long wrist-to-bicep vambraces of the style she was accustomed to, only they were black suede wrap and slightly denser. A pair of butter soft black buckskin trousers were next. These were most certainly not fabricated, and she suspected the hide must have come from Kylo Ren’s own wardrobe stock. The pants were nearly skin tight, but supple, with laces at the inside calf, and at the waist.

Saelin beckoned to the droid, which silently proffered a smoke grey metal object that was almost black. It was some kind of armoured stay, made from titanium lames that crossed in a descending herringbone pattern. The lieutenant affixed it around her waist like a corset. It rose to just under her breasts, and the bottom terminated in a gentle curve at the top of her hips. Over top of this, a black surcoat cinched with a long belt with a holster where her lightsaber would go. There was a matching gorget of the same smoky herringbone pattern, but Rey didn’t put it on yet. The collar on it was high, and wouldn’t be practical outside of combat.

Lieutenant Trinn tended to her hair, combing it back from her face. She braided a snaking coil to the back of her head and let it fall to her right shoulder. She even put some khol around Rey’s eyes- not much, just enough to hide her the green innocence, her simmering fear. 

Rey did not look at herself in the glass until Saelin had brought the final touches- supple elbow-length leather gloves, and boots that reached just past her knees. But it was the last detail that really made Rey feel like she might not be able to return from this moment.

The cowl was thick but mobile, weighty enough not to blow away, but light enough to flow like liquid when she moved. Saelin draped it across her shoulders, showing her how to cross the long lapels over each other, though it could be worn just hanging from her shoulders if she preferred. 

As she stood before the mirror, she expected to see a child in a costume. Instead, a pale young woman stood before her, sober but defiant, eyes difficult to read through the thin veneer of khol. She had never met a regent, or a dignitary, or anyone really, but she imagined that she did look regal. Delicate, graceful and lethal. She decided she looked the part. The voice inside her told her to _run, escape, turn away from this path before it was too late._  

Her thoughts were interrupted by a summons.  _Come to my quarters when you’re done._

Rey dismissed the lieutenant with her thanks, and gave herself one last look, twitching the fabric here and there until she was satisfied. There was something powerful in the black. Something formidable. She couldn't tell if it was illusion or enhancement, but she was beginning to understand.

Kylo Ren was waiting for her, sprawled in a chair before his holotable. His quarters were behind the map room, and directly above the bridge. The forward half of it was open to the sky under a reinforced canopy, and the rest of it was filled with consoles and furnishings. He had a small table where he presumably dined alone, a bed that was large enough for four, and a holotable of his own. It wasn’t large enough to, say, comfortably hold a tie-fighter, but it was the first sign of luxury on his part that she’d witnessed.

“I wanted to see you before they did.” He leaned back in the chair and turned to face her. “Catch.”

From the table behind him, a silver object sped towards her- her lightsaber. She caught it easily in one gloved hand and tucked it into her belt, then approached him warily. He was stripped down to black sleeveless undershirt shirt and breeches and looked surprisingly approachable. He was just out of the shower from the look of his hair, and he seemed at ease with his state of undress, while she felt oddly exposed in her fine apparel.

“Take off the cowl," he instructed, turning in his chair to face her directly. "I want to see you, not it.”

Not entirely sure what he meant by this, she did as she was bid, dropping it on the corner of his bed. Then she stood before him, dressed and armoured as though battle might erupt around them at any moment. The virgin leather of her gloves protested at her elbows and her knuckles as she reached out to test them. She then folded her hands before her and set her feet apart in a stance that was half swagger, half indifferent.

“The lieutenant did very well,” he observed. “But she’s always had a knack for the aesthetic.”

Then he rose abruptly, and Rey felt something wobble inside of her. The desire to run, to steal a fighter and throw herself into hyperspace was almost overwhelming. What was she doing here? She was no Dark warrior. She was hardly even a Jedi.

“You’re afraid,” he said as he approached her. They glittered with malice, anticipation, and a desire so needle sharp that she could actually feel its penetration into her skin.

“I’m not afraid,” she said, her lower lip quivering.

“Yes, you are," he murmured, looking down at her from all six his foot three inches of height. "You’re afraid of so many things, Rey. You’re afraid that I’m setting you up for some kind of fall. You’re even more afraid that I’m not, that I’m recruiting you to some greater, darker purpose.”

“Okay, yes, I’m afraid,” she snapped. “Happy?”

He licked his lips. “No. I am not happy."

He was close now, and she could smell him. He smelled clean. He smelled human. Why she should find this so distracting was beyond her power to explain. Then he moved away, and looked up at the endless ranks of stars and star systems that littered the darkness. His eyes lit up, filled by those stars as them as he contemplated the celestial infinity.

“I’ve thought a great deal about it. I don’t intend to end like Snoke. And Vader, pure as his philosophy was...all he ever did was serve. I must rule.”

She tried to follow the trail of his thought, but he was shielding it, so she was only able to pick up traces of emotion. Was it he who was afraid?

“I need you,” he said simply. “The biggest mistake we ever made was to pretend this autocracy would be able to act unilaterally against a threat when there are so many little satraps and upstarts like Hux, whose ambition was checked only by fear of his master. He would have shot my fighter out of the sky at the nearest opportunity if he'd been a bolder man.”

“I don’t know anything about ruling,” Rey said, feeling around the edges of his vision but not quite able to make it come into focus. “The only thing I know how to do is repairs. I don’t know how to build empires. I don’t really care.”

He turned back to her. “You know how to fight. You know how to fly. These people respect strength that they can see. Soon the remains of the First Order will come out of hyperspace and I must be able to subdue the them to the idea of a new way.”

She crossed her arms. “Even if I believed I could help, how could I stop a rebellion? With a lightsaber and a prayer?”

She'd hardly finished the word before he grabbed her shoulders and put his mouth to hers. It was not a soft kiss, or a kind one. It was demanding and harsh, and full of deep promise. On impulse she resisted, for a second or perhaps two, then she felt something that was frosted over inside her begin to melt. She opened her mouth to him, feeling her knees quiver and a warmth in her belly. 

When he pulled back from her, she slid her gloved hands into his hair, wanting to get into his head, wanting to know what he planned to do to her if she let him... _if_ she let him.

He seized her wrists and pulled her with him to the broad bed. Even without all contrivance, he was a physically powerful man, and she was tossed back on to the bed before she could devise a further scheme.

“Take those off,” he said. “Take all of it of, Rey. Let me see you, and I’ll let you inside so you can see the truth of my words.”

But it seemed he didn’t want to wait. The catches on her titanium stay snapped open of their own accord, and it fell away from her. He ripped his undershirt from over his head and tossed it aside, going to his knees before her on the bed. He caught one of her boots and drew it off, his hand stroking over her calf as he bent down to kiss her foot. Then the other, only this time he kissed the inside of her thigh, which made her go molten in a way she had never experienced.

His mouth moved higher, and suddenly she couldn’t work fast enough, ripping off her gloves, her surcoat, the tunic beneath, until she was naked and unadorned before him. He took the sight of her body, made an approving sound low in his throat, and let his hand slide up over her belly so that he could fill it with her breast.

“I won’t do this with you if you don’t tell me,” she said on a breath, and knew instantly that it was a lie. She’d do this with him if he incinerated her afterwards. It was the prospect of being alone, of being imprisoned on this ship and isolated except when he wanted to use her-

“Stop,” he told her. “Here.”

He took her hand, and brought her fingertips to his temple.

_-need to rebuild, find a system and establish a secure seat, and bring these children to heel. They fear me, but I am alone, vulnerable, not powerful enough to break the old guard. But with her, the connection, just being in the same room as her makes me feel like I could shatter the galaxy. So strong, so beautiful and lonely. She needs me and it’s glorious to be needed after so long._

_No dark warrior yet, but give yourself to me now and your name will be burned across the stars with mine for all eternity._

She pulled away from his mind, overwhelmed. He caught her shoulder and pulled her to him, taking her mouth and reaming it with his tongue until they both had to come up gasping for air.

His breath came shallow as he rested his forehead against hers.“I need a consort, and you’re the only other living person in this universe I trust. I will never leave you behind, never abandon you, never give you away.”

She looked at him, and finally, she believed him. She had no alternative. He moved to kiss her again, but she stopped him.

“Kiss me here again,” she pointed to the place on her inner thigh. He immediately moved down to kiss her, and then did something beyond her experience. He pushed her legs apart and kissed her cunt. She gasped as he slid his tongue down along her folds, raising every localized nerve and every other nerve in her body. When he slid two fingers into her, it was too much. The unreality of the situation hit her at full force, just as the orgasm did.

He stroked her belly as she came, catching the sudden gush of wetness with his mouth, then rose to his full height and watched as she twitched and struggled for breath. He was something to behold, not an ounce of fat on him, just a topography of cut muscle and an odd constellation of scars and burns. The one on his face where she’d split it open was familiar by now, but the one on his shoulder and flank, she’d never seen them except briefly in their connected vision.

He stripped off the leather breeches and kicked them aside. His cock was, in Rey’s minimal experience, large and impressive. It stood out from him, thatched at the base with black hair. She wouldn’t be able to fit a hand completely around it, and he could hurt her if he chose to. She wondered dimly if he would, and almost didn’t care.

“Not this time, princess,” he said, using the Force to pull her closer with a gesture. “When you’re ready for it, I’ll give you all the brutality you can handle.”

She reached for him, and he let her stroke him, however inexpertly. His breath caught, and she knew she was pleasing him. After a few moments he was no longer content and closed the distance between them. The edge of the bed was raised enough for him to stand waist high, and he slid his hands under her thighs as he pushed into her.

It was intense, the size of him, but felt incredible- the sensation of being opened, the pressure and weight of him inside of her. Even more so, because she could feel his pleasure at being inside of her reflected through him, and her own reflected through her back into his mind. He could feel every atom of her, could touch her with exact purpose, exquisite control. 

The rhythm he set was slow, with long, deep strokes that almost brought her to climax by themselves. When he reached for her hands, his fingers slid easily into hers and he watched her, eyes never moving from hers. And she saw herself through his eyes, her own filled with the reflection of the stars overhead, and wet with tears. She thought, not sure if it was her thought, she would tear down whole star systems to stay here like this with him, alive inside this liquid ecstasy.

She could feel it building inside him, an irresistible pressure localized in his balls and in the pit of his stomach. He gave himself over to it, pulling her with him to the edge of the bed. He got his feet under him, and she shuddered when he started to thrust harder, enough to send impact all the way through her body. His hand rode over her thigh, her flank, savouring the hardness of her body. She could feel her heart beating against his hand, knocking on her ribs.

Then he groaned, flexing in the middle as he came inside her, breathless with the sensation of it. She absorbed the wave of his release, writhed as it ricocheted through every one of her muscles, and left her panting and wet around the thighs.

Then she let herself go dead. Her breath stopped for a count of twenty or more seconds before her lungs suddenly involuntarily filled with air, animating her body. Kylo Ren crawled up into the bed, and curled around her. She felt his heartbeat against her shoulder blades.

When they recovered, they rose, and dressed.

“I don’t know if I have this power,” she said finally, staring up at the star filled canopy. “It was your darkness that Master Luke sensed in me, not my own.”

Kylo Ren ran his knuckles over her spine. “I knew when you killed Hux. You were injured, but you did it as simple as blinking.”

“I didn’t really even mean to,” she said, holding her arm out so he could draw her long glove over it. She flexed her fingers, feeling the new pull of the leather.

“Something about proximity has an effect on our powers, Rey. You must have noticed.”

He kissed the back of her neck and she felt a sigh of something like contentment. It was odd how quickly his presence became comfortable around her. There was still the newness of him, the hardness of his body, the potential for pleasure in his bed, but there was also something…

_I didn’t say I would never hurt you. Is that your something?_

It wasn’t that, precisely. He hadn’t said that. He hadn’t said other things, too, things she knew he intended. But harm? No, he didn’t like the idea of making that promise. And somewhere inside she felt relief, because she wasn’t sure that she did either. Or that there wasn’t something about the prospect that didn’t...excite her a little.

_Yes, crossing blades with you is exquisite._

“Use your words,” she said, not deigning to look over shoulder at him. Then she melted when he cupped both breasts, and she could feel him hard through his breeches. At that instant, the ghostly silhouette of a Star Destroyer hovered into view. Only one that she could see, but it was hard with a ship the size of a small city. Kylo Ren looked up at it and she felt a stab of annoyance from him.

“I can’t keep them waiting long enough to punish you adequately,” he said, more anticipation than irony in his word choice.

“Shame,” Rey said, looking into mirror at herself. She braided her hair quickly, pulled it straight, and turned to him. “Well?”

“One more thing.”

She was about to draw on the cowl when he stopped her.

“Let me.”

He pulled it over her shoulders, then reached for something in his pocket- some kind of pin. He used it to fasten her cloak at the shoulder. She turned to look in the mirror. It was a metal so purple that it was almost black, depicting some kind of bird of prey in a dive, talons outstretched. It was both fine but subtle, not easily visible against the black cloth, except when it caught the light.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, touching it with her gloved fingers. “What is it?”

“Mandalorian silver.”

“I mean...what is it? I can see it’s a bird.”

“It’s a sparrowhawk,” he said, and she saw him watching her in the mirror as he stood behind her and donned his own cowl. “There were purple ones on Chandrila, where I grew up. I used to watch them hunt the city’s starling flock. They were so small, so graceful. Absolutely merciless.”

Ah, she thought. He’s building me an identity. He built one for himself, and now I need one too. Rey of Jakku was not going to lead any First Order armies any time soon.

She turned to him. “What’s the Mandalorian word for sparrowhawk?”

He reached out and touched his own gloved fingers to the silver before meeting her eyes. “Nyk’sanaar.”

She followed him as he turned to leave. Rey the no one had entered Kylo Ren's rooms, and his bed. Rey Nyk’sanaar left it, hoping desperately she had left no one behind.


	9. Blood Sport

Rey walked close to Kylo Ren, trying to watch in every direction at once. He walked easily, graceful for a man of his height. She had to increase her stride to keep up.

“Stop looking,” he said. “If anyone’s here, they’ve seen us by now.”

“You don’t know that,” she insisted. A tingling feeling was creeping up her neck.

The city was beautiful, built on a hill of blushing sandstone. Canopies, awnings and curtains of a hundred colours waved in the warm night air. Private dwellings rose in the upper reaches, accessed by gondolas that ran up on the south and southwest sides of the hill, while taverns, salons and courtyards dominated the middle third. They were at the base of the slope, where all of the merchants plied their trade.

Kylo Ren went straight for a dry dock, which was fronted by a stall, occupied by a bored looking middle aged woman who was flipping through a holozine.

“I want fuel for an Upsilon shuttle,” he said without prelude.

She didn’t look up. “Bring it around and I’ll fill it.”

He rapped his knuckles on the counter. Now she looked up, annoyed.

“What?”

Rey watched in fascination as he looked straight into her eyes. She had done this once, but was still amazed and disturbed by it.

“The shuttle is on the third island from the mainland,” he said in his low, resonant voice. “You will refuel the ship there, return, and forget any of this ever happened.”

She glazed over, set down her magazine, and called for her workers to begin filing canisters. Rey stared, mesmerized, until Kylo grabbed her shoulder and pulled her away.

She tried to shake him off. “Let go, I’m fine.”

“Look behind me.”

A patrol of stormtroopers were making their way along the cobbled street, led by a First Order major. They passed by, turning down one of the alleys, barely able to march two abreast in the narrow confines between the stone buildings.

“We need to get back to the ship,” Rey said in a hushed voice, though they were too distant to hear her. “While their backs are turned.”

“No,” Kylo Ren said, his eyes lit with a wolfish interest.

“Kylo!” she hissed. “We have to leave now.”

A faint trace of a smile appeared on his lips as they formed and drew out the word.

“No.”

He stalked forward across the broad boulevard, sidling along the stone walls until he disappeared into the shadow of a nearly identical alley.

Unable to do anything else, Rey followed him. She crept into the alley, but it appeared to be deserted.

“Up here.”

She almost screamed. He was perched above her on the ledge that bordered the rectangular block of attached houses. He offered her his hand. She sighed and caught it, feeling a lifting sensation under her feet as he pulled her up easily.

The ledge was intimidatingly narrow, but she was able to balance easily, and running forward was easier than sitting still.

_We shouldn’t be doing this_

_You love doing this. You don't know it yet, but this is the thing you live for._

A little flash went off in her head, the memory of the battle in the throne room causing a shiver to run down her spine. Yes, that had been a sweet fight. 

They went silently from rooftop to rooftop, moving at an angle to intercept the patrol, which was marching noisily along the broad cobbles. Then they overtook them, putting some distance between themselves and their quarry. 

Kylo Ren said nothing, but signalled to her. She got the message at once. He would take the front, and she would come in at the rear.

_You’ll know when to engage._

_You can’t go in there yourself, you’ll get shot to pieces._

“Trust me,” he whispered.

She watched as he dropped down to the ground behind a blind corner, obscured from both her view and the patrol’s. It was dark, and Kylo Ren was dressed in Dark attire, so he was able to slip in close, materializing out of the shadow directly in the major's face. The major stopped dead, then back-pedalled, his troops knocking into each other as they halted.

“Ren!” he said, his voice shaking. “You- you’re wanted by the First Order.”

“Wanted,” Kylo Ren repeated, cocking his head. “Why am I wanted, Major?”

“H-Hux, he issued a proclamation. You're to be killed on sight.”

Kylo Ren’s eyes scanned the rooftops, the stormtroopers, and then returned to the major. “And can you see me?”

There was an instant of pause. The major went for his blaster, but Kylo Ren seized him by the head with both hands and jerked it to the side with a violent crack. The man dropped to his knees, then fell on his face. The storm troopers immediately raised their weapons and started firing, but they were hampered by the narrow space. Kylo Ren used the Force to deflect a blaster beam, then ignited his lightsaber in time to catch another one.

The stormtroopers in the rear started to back up, trying to get some distance for better shooting. Rey dropped down behind them. She was calm, ready, her instinct superseding her mind, making it clean. She ignited her own lightsaber. The sound immediately turned the heads of the rear guards. She slashed down, a brutal stroke that took the right one in the shoulder, and passed through the left one’s bowels.

Up ahead, Kylo Ren carved up the two leaders, sweeping across for a straight cut across the stomach. He kicked the standing corpses out of the way, sending their torsos sliding off their waists, then stepped over their gore to meet the next pair.

It became a dance. The two before Rey had the presence of mind to keep firing, but she was able to block every shot, sending blaster fire in all directions. The comrades at their backs tried in vain to land a hit on Kylo Ren. His lightsaber was a vicious red blur so fast that they couldn’t track its position.

One of them threw down his blaster and raised his hands in surrender. Rey saw this, and in the back of her mind she knew that it meant submission, but her blood was up. She felt Kylo Ren’s snarl of triumph twist her own face, and in a single identical forward thrust, they each impaled the remaining stormtroopers, skewering them two deep and meeting shoulder to shoulder in the middle.

The white-armoured bodies fell away from them. Lying their in a shiny white pile, they looked like toys to Rey. Underneath them, a pool of blood was starting to ooze down the gentle incline.

They turned off their blades. She looked at Kylo Ren, who was panting. His face was flecked with blood, and in seeing him, she knew that hers was too. Some small, sick, adrenalized part of her wanted to slam him against the wall and kiss him. Was it her own thought, or was it his? She crushed it the instant it entered her head, but the black eyes that looked at her through the darkness were hungry. She didn’t like them. She didn’t like what she had just done. She didn’t like how much she had liked it. She was afraid that he might be right. 

He knew it. He considered her for an instant, then brushed past her.

“We can go now.”

\--

It took them an hour to make it back to the ship by transporter. They skimmed across the deep blue water, making reasonably good time. Rey watched Kylo Ren as he hunched over in the low seat of the transporter, looking like a great black bird under his cowl. He stretched his gloved fingers, cracking his knuckles, manipulating the air with invisible strokes.

 _He’s critiquing himself_ , she realized. _This was just practice for him._

He watched her under the cowl, his expression inscrutable. His discipline at keeping his mind empty was extraordinary. That was the only way she could figure it, because there was no wall in place to bar her mind- just an illusion of absence of thought.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, not really sure why. There was something lonely about being shut out this way.

“You didn’t want to know before,” he said, eyes shining under the cowl.

“I do now.”

“I was thinking that we were meant to fight side by side together. You felt it. I know you did.”

She hunched down, the breeze chilling her through her clothes. “I felt nothing. I saw a threat, that’s all.”

He laughed softly. “You have no talent for deception, Rey. Everything is on the surface. Even without the Force, without the telepathic bond, I’d know your mind.”

She pursed her lips. “We can’t all be virtuoso liars.”

Kylo Ren leaned back, only the lower half of his face visible now. His generous lips smiled a thin smile.

“It’s one of your strengths. You are a warrior, not a dissembler.”

She stared at him, not knowing what to say to that, so she turned her gaze towards the broad expanse of water. Nights were short here, but it still surprised her when one of the suns crested the horizon. The light gilded the blue waters, and they could hear the sweetly singing birds of their island long before they made landfall.


	10. Dispositions

The high council chamber aboard the Star Destroyer _Vindication_ was large enough to seat most of the executive branch of the ship’s governance and hierarchy, but only ten officers had assembled to await Kylo Ren's coming. None of them were high command rank, except for one.

Captain Moden Canady was upright and clear eyed, prepared to deal with a direct assault on his person, as evidenced by the number of stormtroopers he’d lined the upper chamber with. The chamber was raked and dominated by a horseshoe shaped council table that could seat eighty. Kylo Ren entered first, walking slowly out into the empty part of the horseshoe, while Rey remained just out of sight at the door where she could see what was going on. Kylo Ren set his attention on Canady. He and the others rose with his entry.

“You’re presumed dead, Captain,” he said evenly. The surprise annoyed him, but he also was aware that this was now a very precarious situation. Moden Canady was one of the rarest kind of leader among the First Order: an honest one. His people followed him out of loyalty, not fear.

“You’re presumed fled, Kylo Ren,” he said, bald faced as ever. “As is the Resistance girl.”

“Here we all are,” Kylo Ren said. “Miracles. Tell me how you escaped the _Fulminatrix_.”

Canady looked as though he wanted to argue the point, but he was not a stupid man. He too knew this was a delicate situation. “Tie-fighters. My immediate crew, a dozen or so more. I ordered my people to attach themselves to the _Vindication_ while I remained close by until the opportune moment.”

He had to admire it. “It would have been faster if you’d just deposed Hux weeks ago. You’d still have your Dreadnaught.”

“I knew Snoke wouldn’t be able to control you,” Canady said grimly. “You were bound to turn. You’re Solo’s boy. You’re Skywalker’s blood. Even Lord Vader-”

Kylo Ren held up one finger. It was a warning, a clear signal to the captain of the price he would pay for the conclusion of that chain of remarks.

Canady demurred. The stormtroopers, unsettled, shifted slightly, looking down from their high step to their commander. He calmed them with a gesture and then turned back to his adversary.

“I took command of this ship during the panic. I followed the _Reaper_ using the active tracking technology. I wanted to see where you would run to.”

Kylo Ren decided to ignore this jibe. “Tell me what happened to the rest of the fleet.”

“Scattered,” Canady said, stroking his day old beard. “The _Supremacy_ in pieces, along with twenty four other destroyers. A mutiny aboard the _Triumph_ resulted in another lightspeed collision, this one with  _Loyalist._  Both of them destroyed.”

“The _Axiom_? The _Conviction_?”

Canady shook his head slowly. “Gone. Jumped to light speed and went in opposite directions. Everybody retreated when they heard of Snoke’s murder and your disappearance. There is no First Order in this part of the galaxy, and news will reach the Outer Rim soon if it hasn’t already.”

“Thank you for that,” Kylo Ren said, taking that information in. “So have you come to do justice on me, Captain?”

“On you?” Canady asked, puzzled. “What would I want with a rabid dog like you? We’re here for the girl.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, that is a relief. Rey, my dear...these gentleman want to ask you some questions.”

He enjoyed watching her through their eyes as she stepped into view, her pace lazy, her cloak swishing behind her as her heels clicked ominously on the smooth floor. She looked, as she looked to him, kittenish and pensive, like she was unsure of her authority. Then as she went to his side, she touched the pin he’d given her, and seemed to take strength from it.

“Did you murder Supreme Leader Snoke?” Canady demanded, rising to his feet. Her Dark livery filled him with apprehension and confusion, but he decided he had no alternative but to carry on.

“I did not,” she said calmly. “You have the advantage of me...is it Captain? Your friends seem to think your rank is General, Moden Canady.”

Canady’s expression, already compressed, became even more so. “Yes. Such as it is.”

Rey looked at Canady directly. “I am Rey Nyk’sanaar. You may refer to me as Mistress Nyk’sanaar, I think that’s appropriate for one of your station.”

His eyes narrowed at that. Kylo Ren thought it was an interesting choice. He’d chosen his style from the old lexicon merely for the simplicity of this thing- supreme leaders just begged to be toppled, while Darth was a Sith moniker he didn't care to adopt. “Mistress” could serve both for his consort and a rank in and of itself.

Canady swallowed. He didn’t want to open hostilities, but he did not like being challenged. He was, however, increasingly aware that two Force-adept beings stood in his presence, and that the odds were against him.

“I killed Snoke,” Kylo Ren said. “I grew bored of being his experiment and discovered an ally almost in the same instant. I decided that I would join my power to one much greater than that withered tyrant could ever have imagined.”

“You hated Snoke,” Rey said, surprising them both, but she was speaking to Canady. “That’s why you didn’t return after they destroyed your ship. You didn’t want to leave your crew, but you knew that you couldn’t hide your mind from him any more than you can hide it from us.”

Suddenly, Kylo Ren caught a twitch of movement. One of the lieutenants, a young man, reached for a blaster beside his chair. Before Kylo Ren could act, the boy raised it, took aim at Rey, and fired.

Canady, shocked, turned to look in his direction and signalled desperately to the storm troopers to stand down. But they were fixated on what the rest of them were staring at. The blaster laser, red and humming, simmering in the air where it had stopped a foot from Rey’s face. She looked up at it, and then turned her face to him, eyebrows raised.

From his position in the open half circle, Kylo Ren telekinetically seized the lieutenant by his collar and dragged him bodily down from his place at the table. The breath knocked out of him as his back landed on the hard floor. He coughed, and tried to speak.

Rey looked down at him, turning her head like a curious bird of prey. "That, Lieutenant, was rude." 

“Rebel bitch,” he managed to choke out.

“Am I a rebel? I think that depends on your general,” she said to him, softly but loud enough for every one of them to hear her. “In one context, you’re right. We might be rebels, Lord Ren and myself. But I don’t think so. I think General Canady will do the right thing by bending his knee to our authority.”

It gave Kylo Ren a delicious little shiver, watching her take on her authority. Rey raised her hand, and the boy rose by the ankle, struggling wildly. She walked around to the side of the shivering beam, positioning her prey directly in front of it. Now the blaster beam intended for her was instead centred on its author's chest.

Slowly, in fits and starts, the beam advanced, its jagged tip sizzling a hole in the lieutenant’s uniform. The horror from the other officers was palpable, but not a one of them moved to interfere. The boy’s death was slow as the diffusion of the charge burned rather than penetrated his skin. He screamed, and screamed, until the red fire reached his heart and burned through his spinal cord. Rey gestured, and he fell with a thud, and lay still, quietly oozing fluids.

She turned to Canady’s men and indicated the massive table before her. “This thing. I don’t like this thing, it’s very unfriendly.”

She lifted her gloved hands and strangled the air with them. With a crack like a shot, the table split apart in the middle, precisely where Canady stood. He back-pedalled as the two halves rose into the air.

With a quick lateral gesture, Rey sent the heavy pieces crashing into the two lines of stormtroopers with enough force to lay most of them flat. The rest of them ran out of the council chamber, leaving just Rey, Kylo Ren, and Canady’s people, now cowering behind their leader.

Kylo Ren resumed his position at her side, stroking one hand against her neck and feeling a sizzling crackle of power clinging to his fingers like static. She leaned into his embrace, watching the assembly disinterestedly.

He met Canady's eyes. “Make your choice, sir. Stand with me and become my general in truth."

To his credit, the old man had one effort left in him. "If I refuse?"

Kylo Ren stroked his knuckles against Rey's jawline, and turned his attention back to the captain.

"I will give you to her.”

Canady didn’t need more encouragement. As soon as he went down on one knee, the rest of them followed.

Kylo Ren offered Rey his gloved hand and she slid hers into it, watching him with wide, hungry eyes. He gave her mouth a swift but firm kiss, then led her from the chamber, calling over his shoulder

“Make your dispositions known to my Steward and chart a course for the Outer Rim.”

\--

"How could you let me do that?" Rey demanded as soon as the stateroom doors closed behind them. Her expression was wide-eyed, panicked. "I can't do this. I want out. Throw me out into space, I don't care."

The brutal purpose that had carried her away confidently from the scene fled her in the instant they gained his quarters. Whatever spirit of vengeance had possessed her had left her. She was the Rey he knew, the frightened child.

"You defended yourself," Kylo Ren said shortly. "They would have killed both of us. But now we’re safe.”

“Defended myself? Safe?” She looked at him aghast. “I should be dead. I should be tortured. I-I…”

He seized her by the shoulders. “You saved thousands from death by showing that posse how much it would cost them to defy us.”

“That’s idiotic,” she spat. “I crucified that boy. I did it because I wanted to. Because something...made me want to…”

She looked at him, but they both knew that wasn’t his influence. She pushed him away, and removed her stay, letting it and the surcoat fall away from her. She wandered out into the light of the stars, which was now truncated by the shadow of the _Vindication_.

“How could the Force compel me to do something so evil?” she asked the darkness. “How can it possibly bring balance if I...”

He followed behind her and gathered her tense little body in his arms. “My little sparrowhawk. I still have so much to teach you about the Force. But know this first.”

She strained against him for an instant, but them relented, and leaned back into him, closing her eyes.

“Tell me.”

“There is no balance and never was- that is a Jedi lie used to justify hypocrisy.” He stroked her hair, unwinding its from its frazzled braid. “You are a killer. You are a warrior. You must learn to acquire a taste for blood if you want to survive in my world. The darkness has so much to offer you if you can only let go of the guilt.”

She turned to face him, her eyes glossy with tears. She wanted to speak, to say something, to beg absolution.  
  
He slid his fingers over her face, her cheekbones. “You aren’t frightened because you slaughtered that fool. You’re frightened because you liked it. Because it was fun. Because power is intoxicating. No one is going to hold you to account, and you are past the point where you can return to the old rules.”

She couldn’t hide from him, or the truth of his words. As she heard them, understood them, her pounding heart began to slow and her breathing returned to normal. Gentle waves of electricity passed between them, the purring afterglow of the power they’d expended together in the council room.

She pushed him backwards onto his—he supposed, their—bed, and straddled him. In no time at all, they were both stripped down to the skin. Rey rode him hard, fingernails rending bloody tears his chest. He could feel the anguish in her, the violence, the rage. He threw her on to her back, and then dragged her under him by the feet.

A drop of his blood fell on her breast as he fucked her in quick, hard strokes. He didn’t speak, but let his mind meld with hers.

_You aren’t a Jedi now. You’re my student. I'll teach you all about power._

He used the Force to make her come. She cried out, arching violently underneath him. He continued thrusting into her, resting one hand on her sternum as she responded to his influence. She wanted him to hurt her, and he would, but he wanted her to let go of the pain first, to let the power that bound them guide her.

Then he felt it, like a spring coming unstuck. All the way back in her memory, in his, together, the Starkiller Base. That lumbering idiot boondoggle project of Snoke’s, so small and tedious when compared to the real threat. She went back to that place in her mind, the first time she’d touched a lightsaber, the gorgeous feeling of holding that killing energy. All the chaos just stopped, and it was pure combat, instinct driving her on to break through his defence and write an end to him. He remembered it too, the way she’d clipped him, striking him again and again. Under him, the soul inside her rested, soothed by the purity of that memory.

As he turned her on her side and entered her from behind, he felt her soaking him up through her skin. He slid a hand around her throat, holding her in place, holding the beat of her pulse in his fingers. He came inside her again and this time she followed on her own, crying for him not to stop, then panting when he tightened his grip

“You need a fair fight, Rey,” he whispered into her ear. "I'm going to give you one."

 


	11. Bat'saida

Bat’saida was one of the moons of the further reaches of Cirrus’ orbit. It was the largest of all of the moons and protected by its own asteroid field. There was safe one way through for “legitimate” traffic - the kind that went through the notoriously corrupt customs- and another for anyone willing to risk being pulverized by the turbulent wash of free falling, mountain-sized rocks. In spite of the risks, Rey opted for the latter, in no wise prepared to answer to any authority that might recognize her captive.

“This will require a great deal of concentration,” Kylo Ren said, looking out at the tumbling space junk as they searched for a likely entry point. They had so far escaped notice by virtue of a simple application of Mandalorian livery, suitably distressed to make the Upsilon look like an obsolete model of a bygone age. No pirates had troubled to ambush them, deciding to go for easier targets with greater cargo capacity.

“I know,” Rey said petulantly.

He’d consigned her to the copilot seat, and she was a little annoyed because she was easily as good a pilot as him, but it was his ship and he was still its captain. He deployed the wing stabilizers.

“You need to open your mind and let me in," he told her. "You need to reach out to mine, and find the connection there.”

Every particle of her rebelled at this. She hated having her inside his head and she didn’t want to touch his thoughts. But she had no alternative. She closed her eyes and steadied her breath.

_Focus._

She felt a kind of calm settle over her. A certainty. Even...peacefulness. When she opened her eyes, she was ready.

“Now.”

He punched the accelerator. They shot into the asteroid field, their residual thrust sending the rocks spinning behind them. Their route was jagged, crazy and in defiance of all concept of a straight line. They went under, over, and around the asteroids, making barrel rolls and loop de loops to avoid being smashed, always missing a fatal collision by what seemed like inches. 

They skimmed over the surface of one rotating rock that was full of jagged edges. It would cut them to pieces if they ran aground on it. Kylo Ren aimed directly at it, turning at a gruesomely extreme starboard angle which caused them both to slide hard to the right. He laughed as he did it, and for an instant Rey saw Ben Solo as he must have once been. Not Dark, but unrepentantly joyful. He took his hands off the controls and used his mind, their minds, to clear the steep cliff face and punch the thrusters to fire against the asteroid surface to provide them with even greater speed.

Rey should have been afraid of this kind of breakneck flying, but she could only glory in his skill and daring. He flew recklessly, sweeping and swerving through the increasingly dense asteroid field. The closer they got to the planet’s surface, the greater the peril, and Rey realized that he was aiming the nose directly for the densest patch of jagged rocks.

If they hit them at this speed, they would be ground into pieces. Rey turned to him, wide eyed, wondering if this was his plan all along- to put an end to them both with this suicide run. The rocks sped towards them as Kylo Ren opened the throttle to full speed.

One second more, they were dead. Then he seized her bare hand in his gloved one, and she felt the strength shoot up into her arm, flooding her body, filling her heart.

Together, with the Force, they scattered the asteroids out of the way as though they were marbles. Some of them broke apart into pieces the size of the cargo ships, and spun through the field, leaving a path of tumbling asteroids behind them.

Their speed was so intense that meteor fragments clung to their wake, and burst into flame when they reached the planet’s atmosphere. Below them a great sluggish river yawned across the horizon. They hydroplaned over it, slashing the water behind them. It boiled into steam where the fiery meteors slammed into its surface, burying themselves deep in clay.

Kylo Ren surfed the Upsilon across the water for another five minutes, then slowed to landing speed to conserve fuel. He sat back and let Rey take over, his chest heaving as the adrenaline coursed through him.

“That was good,” he breathed. “That was very good.”

She didn’t say anything, but she too was exhilarated. She turned the ship towards the outskirts of the single settlement, a medium sized city called Onglok’saida by navigational charts, and an Unrepentant Zone by the Galactic Council for Vice Control. In essence, a red light city.

“Stay out of sight,” he cautioned. “Put down there.”

“Here?” She leaned out over the console. “Looks like swamp.”

“Here.”

She found a thin track of land and was just able to fit the Upsilon’s width, feet away from the swamp to either side. Except for the track, the area was heavily wooded with spindly trees, all of them festooned with moss. The air smelled like pine and mud, and something less pleasant. Something cloying.

“Bodies,” Kylo Ren said in answer to her thought, leaning back in the pilot's seat. “Do you have everything you need?”

She nodded. Everything she owned she currently wore on her person.

“Good.”

His hand flew over the console. Rey had to stop and work it out, but before she could, a warning alarm sounded.

She turned to him. “What did you do?”

“Bypassed the atmospheric protocol and inverted the directional thrusters.”

She was dumbstruck. “You’re going to crossburn the engines that way!”

He grinned at her, an expression that put dimples in his cheeks and made him look like the boy he must have once been.

“Ready?”

She wasn’t. He seized the accelerator and pushed it all the way forward. The ship bucked as the engines began to warm. The alarm yammered, the whole cabin shaking like a rattle. He grabbed her arm and hauled her out of the hatch. Before she knew it they were running for their lives, pelting down the dirt track as fast as their feet would carry them.

She was able to keep pace with him for a minute or two, but finally her lungs gave out and she had stop and bend over, gasping for breath. She looked over her shoulder. They were maybe thirty metres out from the Upsilon, which was shaking on its landing gear, its engines beginning to glow. The thrusters illuminated the ship’s underbelly.

Kylo Ren, seeing her a stone’s throw behind him ran back and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, dragging her with him behind an insufficiently sheltered rocky outcrop. Both panting for breath, they looked out at the Upsilon. The engines engaged, sending a wave of heat in their direction. The shuttle’s nose tilted forward and drove into the dirt, and the instant it happened, the thrusters fired into the chassis.

The ship exploded in a tower of fire a hundred feet high. The pressure and heat from it circumnavigated the explosion, blowing stinging hot air into their faces. Rey’s ears were ringing, but she didn’t need to be told what would happen next. She kicked up dirt as she used her feet to push herself under the outcrop as far as she could manage, while Ren did the same, his bulk preventing him from getting much cover. Fortunately the wind was blowing away from them, so the majority of shrapnel and fragments fell away from them into the swamp, but a couple of larger pieces rained over them, including one spear-sized piece of the hull that landed six inches from her exposed leg.

A moment passed while they waited for their hearing to recover and for the last of the aftershock to wear off. Kylo Ren stood up, brushing fine ash out of his hair. He offered his hand to Rey, and she took it, letting him pull her to her feet. She followed his gaze out to where the Upsilon command shuttle had been. All that remained was a massive grease fire, burning high and hot enough for them to feel its heat even at this distance.

“No more holding on,” Kylo Ren said, patting her shoulder. “Time to let go.”

She just looked at him in wonder.

\--

“We could have traded that ship,” Rey groused as she followed behind him. Kylo Ren had never been to Bat’saida, but he had been to places like it, while Rey was innocent of much of the galaxy. Night, he told her, was perpetual dusk, while the days were brutally hot, thanks to the proximity to the two suns. Most inhabitants, a mix of humans and the less reputable alien traders, probably slept during the day and conducted trade at night.

As soon as they got to the protected gate of the city, customs agents tried to hustle them. They decided against it after Kylo Ren told them no, and then they couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. Rey followed in his wake, keeping pace with his long, easy strides.

Onglok’saida was five times the size of Ciran, but shabbier, and smellier. There were more people than she’d ever seen in her life. Most of them were vice tourists from off-world, but even so, it was a density unlike anything she’d experienced. Like Ciran the city was built into a mountain but the other similarities were superficial. Each progressive avenue wound itself up the elevation, but where elegant houses had been much in evidence in Ciran, the Onglok’saidian dwellings were mostly taverns, brothels, narco-dens, and sometimes all three. The occasional private house was large, and belonged only to the wealthy. All of them were cut into the living rock, and the colourful awnings were faded and tattered.

Night had just fallen. Most of the junk shops and brothels had just opened up for business, while the night market stalls came alive with merchants of all species crying their wares. By contrast the narco-dens never closed, the acrid sweet smell of their intoxicants always lingering around the doorways. Rey had encountered narcojunkies before. There were always a few dens on the outskirts of the trading posts on Jakku, but here it seemed like every fourth person they passed had glazed eyes.

So too with the prostitutes, who were even more common than the junkies. The women on display here seemed better fed and healthier than the ones she’d seen at home, likely because the brothels were near the apex of Onglok’saida’s economy. She didn’t need Kylo Ren to tell her that these establishments belonged to the city’s powerful families. She could tell just by looking at the physical structure of the city itself.

Down at their current level was the bulk of ship dealers and junk traders, a species with which she was intimately familiar, having so recently been one.

 _You’re a pilot now, and a Jedi besides_ , she told herself.

“Is that what you are?” Kylo Ren asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“You stay out of my head,” she said crossly.

He looked around, evaluating their surroundings. “I’m conspicuous. I need to do something about my appearance.”

He was right. The city was a proliferation of colours in varying states of shabbiness or luxury, and in his black doublet, breeches, gloves and boots, he stood out. His height didn’t help matters either, nor the distinctive slash across his face.

“I’m going to find accommodations for us and learn what I can about matters. See if you can acquire a ship.”

She scoffed. “With what? You blew up the only thing we had to barter.”

“You’re thinking like a junk trader,” he said. “Even with the livery, the Upsilon’s signature will have been uploaded to every wanted board in this city. Plenty here would sell us out for a handful of credits.”

“So what do we do?” Rey demanded. “Hijack a ship?”

“I know it’s out of character, but try persuasion.”

“You’re better at it than I am.”

“Don’t be a fool," he said, his gaze level. "Go get a ship. I’ll find you when I’ve seen how matters stand.”

He turned his back on her, and somehow in spite of his height and monochromatic wardrobe, disappeared into the crowd. Fuming, she turned her back and made her way towards the part of the market that appeared to be full of spacecraft dealers.

She paced back and forth in front of the stalls for a moment. They had holographic ship models and diagrams on view, and were trying to draw in passersby with offers of loans and incentives.

Rey decided to pick the richest looking of the second-hand dealers. The wealthiest of them did not have stalls so much as pavilions, and their ships were top of the line. What was more, sales were conducted by agents, not the actual business owners. A new ship would draw attention, and if she stole one through mind control, the agent would probably be punished.

So the used dealer it was. He was a wrinkled looking Weequay, with a series of rings pierced into the folds of his face. An array of holographic mid model shuttles and fighters were displayed beside him, including Imperial tie-fighters and Rebel X-wings. Rey was tempted for a moment to ask for an x-wing and just fly away, leaving Kylo Ren marooned on this moon. But of course that was a fantasy- the only thing that would stop him from doing as he pleased would be a lightsaber to the heart, and she just couldn’t countenance it after her promise to stand by him.

“What do you want, little philly?” the Weequay asked, stuffing some kind of chewing leaf into his cheek that made his teeth blue. “Run along back to your stable.”

_He thinks I’m a whore._

She didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. Instead she turned her eyes to his stock, searching for something suitable. Everything he had on offer was either too slow, unarmed or had insufficient hyperdrive capability.

“Is this all?” she demanded.

“Should I call for the patrol?” he growled. “They might prefer I deal with you myself, since it’s my trade you’re disrupting.”

She narrowed her eyes and stared up at him, resisting the temptation to reach up and yank out one of his face rings.

_“What else do you have?”_

His eyes glazed over, his disposition relaxed considerably, and he became far more courteous.

“What is my honoured lady’s preference?”

“Something faster and better armed than a shuttle, not too large, but bigger than a starfighter. Full hyperdrive capability, decent fuel capacity and full habitation amenities.”

“Ah. I have the very thing.”

He pulled a holodisc out from under his table and set it before her. The image projected was that of ship that reminded Rey of the Lambda-class shuttle, but it was a far more slender, geometrical craft. Its body was an elongated rhombus with the bridge at the lower point, and a cluster of cannons under the “tail”. It featured a dorsal stabilizer and a pair of triangular “wing” stabilizers that were shortened at the apex where they connected with the aft hull, and extended out past the engine bank. It was graceful, petite, and carried a set of blasters under the forward angle of the stabilizers.

She couldn’t tell the livery from the blue sketchiness of the hologram.

_“Tell me about this ship.”_

“It is a commission from our city’s sadly departed patron, Kah Kaku, who was unfortunately unable to make good on his loan. It was repossessed three weeks ago, and auctioned.”

That was good. New, but privately owned, so it wouldn’t have any registration with any of the local law enforcement or a military history.

“Is it fast? What kind of firepower does it have?”

“As fast as is possible with a six engine bank. The hyperdrive is factory new and it has two Tek-na laser cannon with adjustable power and delay.”

Rey was satisfied. “Take me to her.”

Obedient as a droid, the Weequay summoned his surface transporter, and escorted her to his shipyard. The ship was a lovely, sharp little thing, a dark smoke silver that shone dimly, its belly a red so dark it was almost black. Along the edge of the wing stabilizer were words she did not recognize, written in thorny red script.

She turned to the trader. _“This cruiser is your gift to me for speaking so offensively. You will remember that, but you will forget my face, and forget you ever owned this ship.”_

It was as sleek inside as out, with luxurious black leather upholstery, three cabins, a galley, cargo storage and a small map room. She waited until the dealer had fuelled it and gone from the scene before powering up the console. It hummed to life, purring like a kitten, answering to her touch with an eagerness that was almost lascivious.

“I’m Rey,” she told it tenderly. “ I forgot to ask your name.”

Kylo Ren would know, she thought as she turned the ship towards the horizon, checking the local navigation charts for the public mooring. In the six or so minutes before she arrived, she was in love, so much so that she had all but forgotten the way she and the vessel had been introduced. She found a slip and gently piloted the ship into it.

Kylo Ren was somewhere nearby. She could sense him, not enough to hear more than the edge of his thoughts, but enough to know he had been waiting at the mooring for twenty minutes or so. She searched through the cockpit windows but was unable to spot him. The mooring post wasn’t exactly busy, and was in fact mostly deserted except for a young man lounging on one of the pylons.

She looked closer. It was Kylo Ren, and absolutely not Kylo Ren. In the hour since they’d separated, he had transformed himself from head to heel. His shoulder length hair had been shorn and now fell past his ears in soft black curls. He’d dispensed entirely with the Dark Order livery in exchange for black fatigue pants, a black-cherry leather bomber jacket favoured by many mercenary pilots, and a faded black shirt. He’d acquired a blaster and belted it low on his hip. His lightsaber was hidden away somewhere.

Except for his almost delicately pale complexion, he could pass for local. His fatigues were tucked into the top of his boots, and his hands remained gloved, but otherwise he might have been an absolute stranger- even with the somber choice of palette.

She approached him, and his eyes were bright as they took her in. Maybe it was his trimmed hair or his lazy aspect, but he seemed younger, more playful.

_Stupid, stupid Rey. Fool._

She looked him up and down, and reached to touch the lapel of his jacket. It reminded her of the kind that Poe Dameron wore, broken in and supple. He reached up to touch her wrist. It was the touch of his gloved hand, that subtle tell underneath the costume that reminded her that he was not the person standing before her. No matter how much she wanted to believe in Ben Solo’s survival, she looked on the vision of him that might have been, and saw only Kylo Ren.

His thin smile was pitying, his brown eyes so soft and bright without the cowl or the dark mane to make them forbidding.

“Don’t grieve, Rey,” he said gently. “I am as I was meant to be.”

“A monster.”

“Yes.” He acknowledged, then turned away from her, looking up at the ship in its cradle. “Show me what you've found.”

She gave him the details, and went over to the folded wing stabilizer. “The name is here. I don’t know the language.”

He looked down at it. “It’s Mando’a script. It’s called the Nyk’sanaar.”

She frowned. It sounded familiar, as if she should know it from somewhere. “Nyk’sanaar.”

“It means “Sparrowhawk.”

\--

They decided to stay the night and provision on Bat’saida, preferring an inn and a real meal to the SREs they had been living on up until this point. Rey let Kylo Ren make the arrangements- he’d acquired credits through some clandestine gambling, and paid outright for a private room and a meal to be sent up. It wasn’t good for their cover if they went around Forcing people’s minds in order to get what they needed.

The inn, called the Night Blossom, was as every other inn in this city- a brothel. The number of scantily clad women made Rey a little uncomfortable, but it wasn’t until she saw a fully exposed Twi’lek woman that she really blushed.

“I’ve never seen blue ones before,” she told Kylo Ren when they’d gained their rooms. She felt his desire to tease her, but he resisted it, though he was unable to suppress a small smile. 

The room was simple, reasonably spacious, with a long couch, a table and chairs, a roaring fire and a bed of no mean size. The meal, a spread of fruits, nuts, some roasted songbirds, and stewed snake was already laid out. Feeling very much as though she’d like to numb her anxiety, Rey went straight for a decanter of golden liquid. It turned out to be some kind of local flower wine, and was very, very potent.

Kylo Ren tugged it out of her hand and sniffed it. “I’m not sure this is fit for human consumption.”

“No,” Rey said, feeling her balance wavering as she sat down. She dropped down into the chair and began tearing into the food, not aware how of just how hungry she had been. She ate some of everything, including the snake stew, which was spicy and thick, and surprisingly palatable.

“Here, try.” She pushed it towards him, nearly knocking it off the table. “I know it’s almost cannibalism, but…”

“You’re drunk,” he observed, catching it before it went off the edge. He took a bite, nodded his approval and then began to eat with gusto. Apparently he had also underestimated his hunger. 

“I am,” she admitted, watching him eat was fascination. “I only had a sip. This is stronger than the stuff we make on Jakku.”

He looked at her evenly. “Maybe you just can’t hold your liquor.”

“You take that back,” she demanded, rising from her chair and nearly falling again. The golden stuff had gone straight to her head and beyond.

Kylo Ren caught her before she could topple over. He lifted her easily, a gallant fantasy in his free-flyer costume. But her body remembered those arms, and suddenly she could feel a crackling, deadly heat inches from the left side of her face.

_Woods. Mask. Paralysis. Her knees going out from under her as the black shadow snatched her up._

“Let go of me,” she muttered.

He hadn’t picked up her thoughts for once, so she shoved them into his head. He reacted like she'd struck his face, but didn’t release his hold on her. Instead he carried her to the bed and dropped her unceremoniously on it. She threw an arm over her face, blocking out all vision.

“It wasn’t personal,” he said disdainfully. “I was a warrior in an opposing army. You were a valuable captive. Stop being childish.”

She pulled her arm away from her face. “Why is it so easy for you to hear my thoughts? Why do we have this Force bond? Why did you come with me?”

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Not through any objective. The Force has no motive or desires. It’s just energy that feeds off the attention of living beings.”

“That’s not true,” she said, sitting up now in spite of the dizziness. “That’s completely wrong. The Force is balance. It's what gives us life. Master Luke-”

He rolled his eyes. “Of course. If Master Luke says so."

"What then?" she wanted to know. "Why?"

He sighed. "It’s concentrated around us because we are likely the most Force sensitive entities alive. In the literature it’s called the Vinculum. It has the potential to increase our powers by leaps and bounds while we’re in proximity.”

“How long have you known about this?” she demanded. “Kylo, has this….is this just the Force manipulating us?”

He frowned at her, not certain of her meaning. She wasn’t sure herself what she was trying to say, only that there was a hurt in her chest that was salted by her slowly crumbling belief that for some reason he had followed her because he had seen some virtue in her worth aspiring to.

He reached for her with his gloved hand and at first she thought he was going to stroke her face, but then he did something more intimate. He reached for her thoughts, trying to untangle them, to organize them into a statement of fact.

“Don’t fight me,” he told her.

_You know I can take whatever I want._

She struggled for a moment, and then let go, unable to resist. He would see, he’d see her plan, her last prayer. Ahch-To was not far from here, and if she could only get him to the Island, Master Luke could...could…

“Do you think I didn’t guess?” he sneered.

She tried to close her mind to him, to shut him out, but he had established the physical conduit, and she could feel his will like searching fingers over her the surface of her mind. He saw her, her dreams, her desperation. He saw that bent, irrational part of her that wondered what was so wrong with her that a Dark warrior could not simply like her for herself. At that she wrenched herself away from him, finding her power and using it hold him at bay.

“Stop,” she said. “You have enough, you don’t need more.”

“I do need more,” he said, and the curl of his lip was all too familiar, shattering all illusion of his new packaging. “Even if I did not intend to plumb this connection to its depths, I would need more. And you need me. You’re just too cowardly to admit it.”

She raised her hand to slap him, but her reflexes were pathetic. He caught her hand and forced it back, his physical strength still considerable despite their parity. Then he straddled her and caught her other hand, pinning it back against the headboard. He was so much larger than her, it was impossible for her to get her feet under her.

“Let go of me,” she demanded. “Let go, or...or…”

“This doesn’t happen now,” he told her as she struggled under him. “This happens when you’re clear headed and sober. I want to see you betray your convictions. I want to see your open eyes when it happens.”

Then he passed a hand over her eyes and the world darkened. She slept, and his words faded into a dim memory.

\--

Kylo Ren carried Rey out of the Night Blossom just before dawn. Whatever the liquor was, it clearly had a cerebral dampening effect, because he’d been able to put her down as easily as the first time they’d encountered one another in the woods of Takodana.

It was also fortunate that the Onglok’saida was a pit of vice and fornication, or a man walking towards his ship with a woman slung over his shoulder might inspire comment. He made the fifteen minute walk fairly easily, all of it downhill. The Sparrowhawk waited in her cradle, a pleasant halo of light cresting her dorsal stabilizer.

“Lovely,” he told the ship as he popped the hatch. He had to credit Rey for her find, this was a delicious little cruiser.

He dumped her into the copilot’s seat, and she groaned, turning her face into the leather seat. He sat down in the pilot’s seat and ran his hands sensually over the console and giving a shiver of pleasure before flipping the ignition switches. The ship hummed to life, responding beautifully to his touch.

“My ship,” Rey mumbled as she lifted herself out of her seat, covering her eyes. “You stole my ship.”

“You stole your ship,” he reminded her. 

He reached into the air and Force-yanked a canteen from its slot in the galley, causing it fly into his hand. He offered it to her and she took it, drank from it, sighed, and then drank again.

He pushed the throttle and they ripped across the desert at a low altitude. Once they were well away from the city, he put down near a freshwater spring. Customs had already marked the ship, and he wanted Rey fully recovered before they tried the asteroid field again.

He pulled off one glove. “Give me your hand.”

“What?" She drew back from him. "No."

He reached out and snatched her wrist. “Stop being stubborn. This won’t hurt.”

She gave one half hearted tug to free herself and then gave up. He loosened his grip and took her hand.

“I want you to focus. Draw on my strength to heal yourself.”

“It’s just a headache,” she protested.

“Then it should be easy,” he insisted. “This is something I’d prefer not to attempt with a fatal wound.”

She closed her mouth to that. Then focused, closing her eyes. Her breathing deepened, and he felt a tingling run down his arm like pins and needles. All of the processes in his body slowed, his breathing, his heartbeat, his circulation. After a minute, she released his hand and sat back in the seat.

“That’s incredible.”

He rubbed his hand, bringing the feeling back into it. “If it wasn’t confirmed before, it is now. The Vinculum is the only way to heal like that. And only with each other.”

“How did it feel for you?” she asked, peeling herself out of her seat. “Did it hurt?”

“No.” He stood and walked towards the rear of the ship. “It was like...falling asleep.”

She lingered behind him. “And it’s not something that can be taken against your will.”

“No,” he said, turning towards her even as he activated the stateroom door. “It must be given freely.”

She noticed him standing there, in the doorway and stood up. “Are you going to rest?”

“No," he said calmly. "I’m going to take you to bed now.”

She blinked. “Sorry, what?”

"We could do this out here," he said as he stepped back from the door and advanced slowly on her. "It would be less comfortable, but it might be more interesting.”

He could tell that her first instinct was to bolt, but the corridor was too narrow and he had a foot in height on her. He boxed her in with his arms, preventing her from ducking under them and escaping.

“No,” she said, her voice weak as she tried to get her breath under her words. “Ben.”

“Ben?” he laughed softly as he pressed his body in closer. “Rey, when will you learn? Why do you appeal to ghosts for deliverance? Have they ever saved you?”

He bent down and brushed his mouth against her cheekbone, inhaling her stale dusty scent, and under it, the salt sweet smell of her skin. She quivered like a prey animal caught in the sights of a rattlesnake. He could smell intoxicating fear on her. She was afraid of him, yes, but it wasn’t what she feared most. The memory of their first meeting flashed before her eyes again, trying to warn her that her experience knew the truth of him.

“It’s just skin,” he reassured her as his mouth found her ear. “No more masks.”

He took her hand and put it on his body, over his ribs, over the twisted mass of burn scar. The curiosity of it seemed to tempt her out of her paralysis. The wookiee had taken a good shot at trying to kill him, and she could fit her small hand into the place where the plasma shell had torn him open.

“You deserved this,” she said, and gave him a shove.

It surprised him but it wasn’t enough to dislodge him. He caught her before she ducked under his arm, and slammed her against the bulkhead.

“Yes, I did,” he agreed. “Yes, I am a monster. And you are bound to me until you kill me, or I kill you. No matter how far apart we are, we will still be connected. I will dream your dreams and you will wake up screaming from my nightmares.”

“Find a way to undo it,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to be bound to you _or_ kill you.”

“You want me to love you, Rey,” he snapped. “For your sake, for the sake of some virtue you think you can recover in me. You are naive if you think that’s love. Love is pain. Love is weakness.”

“No!” she said, tears springing to her eyes now. “That’s not true.”

“It is the only thing that’s true.” He cupped her face in his hand. “Love consumes. Love is torture. Love kills. I don’t have anything else to give you but the truth.”

Her eyes were accusing. “You just want the power. The Vinc-”

He interrupted her with a little shake. “I want you, foolish girl. If we had crossed paths in some other life, I would have loved you for your warrior's heart.”

“Don’t,” She begged, but she was breaking.

He tilted his head and kissed her, hard and unyielding, just as he was hard and unyielding. With his kiss, he opened his mind to her, his soul, giving her access to the depth of his being, rational and irrational, inchoate emotion and steel shod conviction.

She stood there, pinned, helpless, hemmed in by her own dogma. Faced with this flood of emotion, her resistance crumbled. She couldn’t stop herself from letting him in, was unable to stop herself from giving him everything that lived inside of her, burned in her.

_I can’t stop-_   
_You can’t change this_   
_my enemy_   
_-never find peace with anyone else_   
_fight this darkness_   
_the darkness is inside you_   
_Fight him, you weak stupid girl_   
_Yes, fight, fearless one_   
_How will I forgive myself? How will they-_

  
“Forgiveness is worthless,” he breathed against her lips. “Guilt is worthless. The only thing that matters is life, until it ends. Do whatever you can to stay alive and if we don’t do this now we will both die from the pain of denial.”

She stared at him, her doe’s eyes wide as the last of her conviction drowned behind them. Her fingers tore at his shirt, lifting it away from him. She surged forward, her mouth kissing his chest, kissing the hollow of his throat. Her teeth left marks so deep they would turn purple before long. He pulled her to him by her hair, shoving his tongue into her mouth with devouring need. Then he pulled her loose doublet off her body, his fingers finding her waist, her delicate ribs, so small in his hands.

Rey shoved him away and pulled off her tunic herself, the sight of her breasts tumbling out almost finishing him right then. He lifted her by the small of her back, both of them arching in a contour to negotiate the cramped space. He found one breast with his mouth, sucked as much of it into his mouth as he could until she gasped and whined. Then he grabbed the waistband of her pants and jerked them down around her knees.

She shimmied out of them the rest of the way, standing naked before him, slender, freckled, the fine hair at the juncture of her thighs already dripping wet to the touch. She whimpered as he drew one finger up along her slit, her hands fumbling for the laces of his fatigues.

He lifted her by the thighs, holding himself, his cock poised against her as she wedged herself between the walls.

“Rey,” he breathed. “Look at me.”

_I want to see your eyes when it happens._

He watched her eyes, wide, hazel, uncertainty now giving way to surrender. To absolute all encompassing need.

Slowly, she lowered himself on to his cock, sinking him into her. Both of them groaned with the sublime carnal physicality of it.

He braced his hand against the bulkhead and fucked her with every inch of him, tensing his core muscles to give him more thrust as he buried himself inside her. She wrapped herself around him, crying out each time he drove home, crying tears that dripped down his back, silently pleading for him not to stop.

_I'll die if you stop._

He obliged her as long as he could hold out. When he came, he caught her mouth in his and Forced the feeling of his orgasm into her body. It brought her the release she needed, and he felt her gush, her wetness dripping down his belly, clinging to the trail of hair that went from his navel to his cock.

They remained propped and pinned like that for an interminable length of time. A few minutes, a few hours. Time was broken where they were. When the strength finally went out of her legs, Kylo Ren caught her mid-collapse. He lifted her in his arms and with some twisting in the narrow space, carried her into the stateroom.

This time he lay her gently on the bed, where she fell asleep at once. He lay down next to her, and she curled into him, for all the world as though she were safe. 

He fell asleep breathing her in, and for the first time in his life, slept without dreams.

 


	12. Deep Roller

Moden Canady was not a stupid man. He had joined the Empire’s Navy Corp when he was nineteen and served with distinction ever since. He rose quickly by merit, inspired loyalty in those under his command, and trained ranks of officers who were resourceful and clear headed as himself. He resented being placed under the command of Armitage Hux, but performed his duties to the best of his abilities until one day, looking defeat in the face and realizing that the leadership had steered them into avoidable slaughter, he withheld his services to the First Order.

Now he was Kylo Ren’s highest ranking general, supreme commander of his armies, a state of affairs that he found uncomfortable. Hux was one thing, a personally objectionable fanatical boot licker with no head for leadership and a tendency to whine when he didn’t get his way. Ren, now Lord Ren (and wasn’t that a disturbing portent) was an entirely different matter.

When Han Solo’s son arrived in their midst, he was a boy, close to the same age Canady had been when he’d joined the Empire’s fleet. Green as summer grass, frightened and unsure, it was rumoured that he was far more than just a captive- he was powerful in the Force. This was something exceptional indeed, as many of the officers and enlisted personnel did not actually believe the Force was still present in the universe. Yes, Snoke was supposed to be a great Dark lord, but the vast First Order was by and large run via layers of delegation. The “Supreme Leader” was as mythical to many of them as the Force was.

It wasn’t until the puppet Hux appeared on the scene and started acting as Snoke’s mouthpiece that Canady understood the hierarchy had decided against him. And when he was made more aware of just how capricious and megalomaniacal that true leader was, he was more grateful than he could have expressed if he’d ever dared.

In truth, even more than Hux, it was young Ben Solo who put paid to his dream of leading the fleet. Not because Solo rivalled with Hux for Snoke’s favour, but because Solo himself was something neither Canady nor Hux could ever hope to complete with. A true and powerful Force capable warrior, trained by Luke Skywalker and now indoctrinated by Supreme Leader Snoke. Canady, from his reduced circumstances, watched as the young man grew stronger, took on more responsibility, was inducted into the fabled Knights of Ren. The boy Ben Solo began to disappear until one day, the Darkness swallowed him, leaving only Kylo Ren behind.

Then the real nightmare began. Once he had the grandson of Darth Vader, Snoke lost interest in the Knights of Ren and ordered their leader to murder them. Kylo Ren had done it without question, or so the rumours said, as Canady did not go out of his way to listen to such gossip. Even so, he could sense the change in him when he returned from his mission, a brooding, a simmering rage that was always ready to rise up against some unsuspecting victim. Canady had not hitherto seen a person killed with the Force, but when Canady’s helmsman made a whispered joke about Solo’s son within the hearing of Kylo Ren’s mind, Ren Force-strangled him in front of the bridge crew, and drew out the man’s suffering for ten minutes or more.

No one made jokes after that. Ren’s fits of temper were not topics for casual or light hearted discussion. Canady was not normally given to such in any case, but the memory of that man, his man, dying like a condemned thief at the end of a noose...it stayed with him.

So it was with some apprehension that he and his two adjutants made their way to the _Reaper’s_ map room. In this instance, it was not so much Kylo Ren that he was concerned about (Ren had not caught him napping at any point since that day) but the young Rey, his Dark apprentice and lover. The girl who had killed Canady’s lieutenant so hideously. He would not deny that she had cause, since Kharos had been stupid enough to open fire on her, but the image of him screaming as she slowly roasted him with his own blaster beam, that too would stay with him.

He’d had occasion to spend time in her company when she’d come to inspect the bridge of the _Vindication_. He had been surprised and impressed to see her instinct for ship craft, and while his bridge crew remained on tenterhooks during her brief stay, he himself had felt no sense of menace from her. She was in many ways, a naive child, often friendly and engaging in a way that did not suit her vicious streak. He put that to Ren’s influence. Corrupting the honourable was the hallmark of the Dark side.

Canady was respectful to her. He took it for granted that she might be struck with a whim to do him harm in some protracted, agonizing way. She had done so only once in his presence, beckoning to the sub-navigator with an apparently innocent request, and then...well..whatever she did, it was internal, because the man began to bleed from his nose and mouth, and finally his eyes. As he died, he confessed that he had contacted the _Axiom_ with the intention of giving away their location, and dispositions.

She must have heard his thoughts, Canady assumed. What frightened him most about Rey Nyk’sanaar was not the violence of her displeasure...it was the utter imperceptibility of its prelude. One moment she was running on about the superiority of the new console relays, and then she was sweetly entreating the young man to come and have a word with her.

Kylo Ren would have killed him where he stood, or possibly scraped his tortured mind for information. Mistress Nyk’sanaar gave no indication that her courtesy was by way of contrast to her cruelty. Canady resolved almost immediately to always be completely honest and forthright with his masters. As this was his normal practice, he felt he was as well protected as anyone.

He arrived promptly after the summons and found Kylo Ren and his consort standing over a map of a planet in the Outer Rim. With him was his logistics officer and his supply officer. He did not know the former, but the latter was a pretty young woman who had charge of the general supply, as well as the armory aboard the _Reaper_. He made a mental note to ask Ren for the loan of her skills in the redesign of the stormtrooper kit.

“Yes, of course,” Ren said without looking up, answering his thought. “We’ll take on supplies and craftsmen on the way to Cantonica.”

Canady knew better than to act surprised. “Very good, Lord Ren. May I take it that Canonica is our final destination?”

Rey Nyk’sanaar looked up at him. “The _Axiom_ is bound for the outskirts of Canto Bight, general. This is a problem for us.”

She seemed quite pleased to have a problem, bending over the hologram and causing it to reduce scale until it showed the position of the destroyer _Axiom_ some ten hours from the planet in question. Kylo Ren’s hand rested at the small of her back, riding slowly along her close fitting black tunic. No one missed the possessive closeness he maintained with her and it was more than passing odd to see him so obviously and completely in love.

There was more to it, Canady could feel it. Something just barely perceptible, like a low frequency sound that physically impacted the ear in spite of not registering as sound, and every now and then there was a feeling of static on the back of his neck. Whatever these two had, it affected their surroundings and seemed to link them in some way that was even more intimate than flesh.

“Tell the general about Cantonica,” Kylo Ren said to his underlings. He then attended to his mistress, stroking a hand across her braided hair. They appeared to be speaking telepathically and were not interested in the less sophisticated communication.

“Sir,” the young logistics man said. “Canto Bight is a tax haven, and consequently has a great deal of ready cash to hand. The First Order has client accounts there. There are also five different shipyards, all of which are fully operational and can turn out a starfighter in a day. Massive production output. There are also at least two independent contractors available for hire in the city, and possibly more.”

Canady contemplated this. “What kind of numbers?”

“In the thousands, sir.”

He turned to the supply officer. “Tell me about the resources.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and her whole demeanour was earnest. She was perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five. A pretty thing, with an air of diligence.

“The planet is amply well provisioned, sir. Foodstuffs, fuel, raw materials and fabricated goods are all in abundance, as well as skilled crafts people capable of manufacturing arms and armour.”

“I want your opinion, Lieutenant…”

“Trinn, sir.”

“Lieutenant Trinn, how large an army do you believe the _Axiom_ can field, including their on board personnel?”

She straightened herself before giving her answer. “They can outfit three thousand infantry from Canto Bight. Eleven thousand infantry total.”

He turned to the logistic officer. “The size of their air capabilities? Armour units?”

“Considerable. If they have a full complement, their air power will be at full strength.”

Canady nodded. “Very good.”

Kylo Ren gestured to the two. “That will be all. General, stay. Tell me how the _Axiom_ is staffed.”

Canady gripped the edge of the table and leaned inward. He reached for a console and programmed in the schematic of the star destroyer.

“The _Axiom_ is captained by Colonel Imbrasia Mawai. She is a competent commander, deeply loyal to the First Order, and an appointee of General Hux.”

Ren nodded, slipping his arms over Rey’s shoulders. She was such a little thing, the cowl about her shoulders adding hardly any bulk to her profile. Her eyes watched him as though she was curious about him, interested to hear what he had to say. He was a little distracted by the affectionate informality of their behaviour, but then, he thought, sovereigns are entitled to such displays.

“Go on,” Rey said. “What do you think they will do?”

“Mawai has no love for you, Lord Ren. Word of your deeds has likely reached her and the rest of the scattered ships. Each of them will regard themselves as the rightful successor to the position of Supreme Leader.”

“That,” Kylo Ren said in a bored tone. “Is obvious.”

“Beg pardon, my lord,” Canady said humbly as he could. “The likelihood is that we will not be able to surprise them. They will have to land the destroyer in order to resupply in less than a day. They will be most vulnerable to attack at that time, particularly from orbit.”

“It is not my intention to attack them from orbit,” Kylo Ren said, looking into the hologram. “I want that ship undamaged. I want their personnel by and large intact. I can always acquire more starfighters, but trained pilots are hard to come by.”

“Sir, that is....suicide,” Canady said calmly. “On the ground we can only prevail through a war of attrition.”

Kylo Ren opened his mouth to speak, but Rey touched his lips. He frowned at her. Canady was amazed. Another person who attempted to quiet him would not live to make a second attempt. But this girl, this Rey, had _done something_ to him.

She turned to him. “General. If we were to stage a ground attack, what kind of defence can we expect?”

He thought about it. “Walkers, whatever armor they have out in the vanguard. They’ll keep their stormtroopers close to the ship, where they can be covered by cannon. They’ll prefer the ventral cannons against ground forces, and use the dorsal cannon as anti-air guns. If we land an army they’ll throw everything they have at us.”

“Good,” Rey said. “Arrange your dispositions and find good ground. Valleys, ravines. You will run defensive operations while we lead the attack. Keep the _Vindication_ well out of range of their sensors. We’ll shuttle our materiel and infantry, and we don’t want them to know we’re there until the last possible moment.”

She walked out of Kylo Ren’s arms, her cloak swirling around her, and left the map room. Kylo Ren stood in place, noticed his empty hands, and relaxed them by his side.

“Sir?” Canady asked, afraid to follow the order without his master’s approval.

“Do as she says,” Ren affirmed. “I don’t need to remind you what will happen if you fail to carry it out.”

“To the letter, sir.”

Kylo Ren took his towering black presence and made to leave. He stopped beside Canady, shoulder to shoulder, and looked down at his general. “Don’t be so anxious, General. If we die, you become commander.”

 _Take care lest you be tempted to speed that outcome_ , said a voice in his head. 

Moden Canady shuddered as the searching fingers withdrew from his mind.

\--

At first, sensing that Rey wanted to be alone, Kylo Ren did not try follow her. As the hours wore on and the preparations no longer required his attention, he put off his cloak, threw water on his face and went to find her.

She was on the repair deck, in the mechanical workshop where broken droids and other equipment were repaired. It was empty except for her, at work on something gripped in a vice. It was her lightsaber, opened to reveal its wiring and crystal array. She was stripped down to her vambraces and tunic, a small smear of oil on her shoulder.

He observed her, cloaking his presence from her, intrigued by her project, just as he was intrigued by the strange person that she was. She was still Rey, still interested in taking things apart, still youthful and engaged. Would she still be this way in a year? In ten years? She was only just beginning to explore her capabilities, only just beginning to perform actions outside of what she had previously set as the boundary of moral permissibility.

He had insight into her. Rey knew she could kill. She knew there was no retribution awaiting her. She was tethered to him, under his protection, but also despaired of ever finding her way back now that she had discovered how easy it was to murder. So, she reasoned, she may as well murder.

“Damn,” she said, wincing as she cut her finger on a sharp wire. She jumped a little when she saw him move from amongst the dead droids, but didn’t protest when he took her hand in his gloved fingers.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long,” he said, lifting her hand and sucking her finger into his mouth. Her blood was spicy and coppery. He pulled off his glove and held her hand in his.

“I need that back.”

“Let me try something.”

He focused his mind, letting a tiny stream of his own life force flow into her.

And she looked in awe as the cut on her finger healed and sealed itself, as though it had never been. “What did you do?”

“I’ve been in the Empire’s archives,” he admitted. “Learning about the Vinculum.”

“The what?” She was listening, but she turned back to the gutted lightsaber.

“In Jedi lore, a Vinculum was a Force-bond between two especially receptive beings. It confers strength, the ability to heal one another, and vastly increased mutual telepathy.”

“Oh,” Rey said. “Is that why you can make me come by just looking at me?”

He grinned. “Possibly.”

“Don’t,” she warned. “I’m almost done here.”

She put the array back into the light saber and soldered it shut, filed it down, and polished it. It was more slender and a little longer in the hilt than it had been. She grabbed it up, and he noticed another hilt on the table next to it, equal in length but slimmer.

“Haven’t you been busy.”

“Well,” she said, tucking them into respective holsters, low on each hip. “We are going to war.”

Then she smiled. Then she laughed, a flush coming into her cheeks. A joyful warrior on the eve of battle. She threw her arms around him and kissed him, kissed him, Kylo Ren. The lone wolf of the First Order, and here he had this precious, delicious toy all to himself. There were times when he still didn't believe it.

He shoved everything off the workbench and lifted her on to it. He could have used the Force, but he enjoyed the tactile sensation of the violence.

She leaned back on her palms as he drew her breeches and boots off. His own breeches he shoved down just far enough to get his cock out. It was hard by the time he pulled her against him. She whimpered as he entered her, threw back her head as she arched, supporting herself on her hands.

“Harder,” she whispered. “Harder than that.”

He positioned his naked hand at the small of her back, and grasped her chin with the gloved one, denting her lower lip with his thumb. Then he laid into until she screamed his name. When she came, it was not from his manipulation of the Force, just his own physical performance as a man. She sprawled back on the table, panting, shivering when his hand crawled up her belly between her breasts. He squeezed one through her black linen shirt, slackening his pace.

“I love you,” he said, hardly even noticing his words.

She looked up at him, and then sat up. The motion caused her muscles to tense inside and squeeze him. He grunted, feeling a ripple travel through him.

Her wide eyes took on that quality of innocence and vulnerability. “Would you love me even if we weren’t Force connected? Even if I hadn’t come with you?”

He stroked her cheek, then kissed her mouth. “Yes.”

“Really.” She didn’t seem convinced.

“Oh, I would still kill you,” he assured her. “If you’d chosen to oppose me. And you would have ended me give the chance. That’s what it means to be at war.”

She frowned. “But you would still love me?”

“Indifference is love's antithesis, not hatred.”

“That’s not very evolved, Kylo.”

“Mmm. Turn your head. Like that.” He licked a hot wet line from her collarbone, up her neck to her earlobe.

“We’re going to war tomorrow.”

“On the same side.”

“I should be afraid,” she admitted. “But I’m not. I feel strong. I feel ready.”

He moved his cock inside her, shimmying his hips. She rode him back in a lazy wave.

“Together we are more powerful than ten Jedi,” he told her. “Tomorrow we test the limits of that power.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered. Then begged. “Make me feel it.”

He slammed his hips, his cock into her, causing the work bench legs to skid against the metal floor under them. She came again, this time reaching into him with the Force and causing him to release. He came twitching, his nails digging hard into her ass, his breath stuttered.

“Oh you,” he panted. “Rey, you learn too quickly.”

She pushed him away, and pulled her pants on, lacing them quickly. Standing before him, she looked like any swaggering cockerel star pilot, just in darker plumage. His Rey, his Dark one, his bright, bold girl. He felt too many contradictions in that, but he didn’t care.

“Come on,” he said, lifting her in his arms and heading to the drop shaft. “I’m going fuck you until one of us has heart failure.”

“If your heart does stop,” she murmured. “Now I know how to start it again.”

\--

He stood before the mirror. Trinn, his outfitter, dressed him while Rey looked on. He did not intend to overburden himself with armour plates or hauberks. Instead Trinn had crafted a leather doublet with stiffened leather reinforcing the chest.

Rey herself favoured nothing more complex than the simple tunic, her long vambraces, the armoured stay that circled her waist and protected her vitals. Movement above all was her concern. He wore his cowl pinned at the shoulder, while she wore a half-cowl, which gathered around her shoulders and went to the small of her back. She wore her Nyk’sanaar, and he a black onyx in the shape of a Aurebesh “R”. Not that it mattered. The pins weren’t what would distinguish them in the battle.

They landed at dawn. Cantonica was a desert planet, with one large artificial sea. It wasn’t a real place at all, just an expensive gambling den for superlatively rich weapons manufacturers. The actual landscape wasn’t much to look at, mostly scrub brush and some rolling hills. Even so, Canady had done his job by finding terrain close enough to the _Axiom_ that was suitable for their diversionary tactic.

He lifted the comm to his mouth. “Jam their communications.”

That was enough. As they looked out at the massive ship, hazy in the distance, a sudden rumble began to sound. There was, as Canady had predicted, a ring of infantry close by the ship. They knew that an attack from above would require a large number of fighters, fighters that Kylo Ren preferred to save for the purpose of shooting down other fighters.

“Engage them to the eastern quadrant. Shoot everything that moves.”

The tie fighters raced to their commander’s order, ripping through the desert air and filling the brightening sky with blaster fire. Mawai’s fighters tore after them. Kylo Ren’s laser mortars, deployed just behind the defile, blasted at them whenever they came too close. Positioned there was cluster of cannon and if Mawai was fool enough to send troops to clear them out, they’d be trapped in the narrow canyon. He didn’t think she would be stupid enough, but it didn’t really matter.

Rey was more relaxed than he’d seen her. She seemed calm, at peace, and that feeling flowed into him. Yes, this was where they belonged, not idle in some convoy, creeping through space. Here, about the business of combat.

A wave of storm troopers began to advance, many of them on surface transporters. Walkers lumbered among them, providing overhead cover and some shielding from the aerial combat. Rey took his hand, and together they walked out into the dust. In front of them, ranks of armor and stormtroopers behind a shimmer of heat. Behind them, so large that the aft hull faded into the distance, the Axiom sat waiting. From their vantage point they could just see the command bridge. He imagined the figures inside it, looking on.

 _Soon_ , he thought.

How they must have looked to them from their view screens in the face of their advancing army, two figures in black, their cloaks fluttering in the wind, alone against a thousand troops.

Rey ignited her lightsaber in her right hand, and the complimentary blade in the other, a laser stiletto. Both of them, instead of the blue of Luke Skywalker’s weapon, were a purple that was so intense it was almost difficult to look at.

He ignited his, the brutal red fire zipping down the blade. Even from this distance, he imagined he could see a physical reaction in the bridge. The stormtroopers, now a dozen yards away from them, suddenly broke pace, hesitating so that their fellows behind them stumbled. Then their sergeant raised his hand and ordered them to open fire.

Together he and Rey moved, taking each blast with their blades and sending them winging back at the ranks. They advanced this way, Rey slapping fire back with the stiletto and parrying with the blade. He whirled the red lightsaber and caught every shot as though it was nothing at all. They walked forward towards the line, brisk, purposeful. Untouchable.

Rey seized one of the blaster beams out of the air and rotated it, letting it fly at full speed where it punched through the sergeant’s face. By this time they had reached the first rank, and the stormtroopers were not prepared to fire in their own lines. They backed away from the pair, forming a ring around them.

“Come on,” Rey laughed at them. “Are you scared of me? I’m just a little girl.”

One of the stormtroopers raised his weapon. She stepped on air as she drove towards him, bringing her blade down across him with one hand, and puncturing another’s breast plate with the stiletto.

Meanwhile Kylo Ren mowed them down at the waist, using his powerful lightsaber to cut through the sea of shiny white. One some five feet to his right tried to raise his weapon but Kylo Ren snapped his neck with an effortless gesture of his hand, while his blade went straight into his closest opponent, and the one behind him.

Someone had ordered an enemy tie fighter to take them out, despite the peril to the now quickly retreating storm troopers. It swooped low, but its fire went wide. The guttural shriek of it was close enough, and the scorch marks in the dirt were a hundred feet long. Kylo Ren could hear the engines gunning as its turned for another pass.

He sheathed and holstered his lightsaber, and called to Rey.

_Take my hand._

She sheathed her weapons, and caught his gloved hand in hers. The tie fighter bore down on them, cutting the air with a mechanic wail as the pilot corrected his aim, and opened fire.

With their free hands, they Force deflected each beam, causing them to refract like light on a mirror. The pilot, seeing this, did something both brave and incredibly stupid. He went low, coming in almost parallel to the ground, laser cannons aimed directly at them.

Kylo Ren felt power shooting along his arm, lighting him up inside. His heart pounded, but outside he was calm, and ready. He reached out and snatched the air with his gloved hand. With an ear-splitting screech, the tie-fighter upended itself, caught by the left stabilizer. All five tons of it flipped on its side. Kylo Ren opened his fingers and sent it spinning like a toy to crash into a row of walkers. They went down like dominos, the last one exploding into deadly shrapnel. No fighters attempted to fire on them after that.

Now they were twenty yards from the ship. He looked over at Rey, who was glossed over with a sheen of sweat and gasping, but the instant he let go of her hand, she went pelting towards a crowd of reinforcements that had arrived on a transporter. He watched as she unsheathed her blades and cut through ten, fifteen...then the rest of then fled, stumbling through the bloody sand, trying not to trip on limbs or viscera.

Another transporter arrived on his right flank, and disgorged another batch of stormtroopers. They were fifty feet away, but Kylo Ren raised his hand and seized the sergeant by the neck, drawing the hapless soldier towards him at high speed. He judged the distance and just as the stormtrooper came in range, he reactivated his lightsaber and Force-pulled him onto the blade like so much skewered meat.

The rest of them broke. They ran as fast they could in any direction. He caught another one of them, dragging him by the foot so that he could cut him in half with a low sweep. He looked over and saw Rey panting as she finished the last of her victims, some white plastic-faced unfortunate who had tried to raise his blaster and lost his arm at the shoulder for his trouble.

_All’s well, my love?_

She nodded. Nothing had touched either of them. Together, blades drawn, they walked the rest of the way to the ship. The _Axiom_ was already hailing Canady to declare surrender. He could sense the transmission. He could feel the minds of every sentient organic life form within a hundred yards. His blood was electrified.

When they got there, the ranking officers had manacled and gagged Colonel Imbrasia Mawai. Two majors and a lieutenant, terrified to a man. They dropped to their knees as they approached, while Mawai stood defiant. Kylo Ren whirled his blade, letting its sizzle sing through the air.

“Which of you is the ranking officer here?”

A pasty young man looked up from his prostrate position. “Lord Ren, I’m the senior -”

“Are you?” he asked. “I see your Colonel standing here. That would make you second ranking officer.”

“We agreed it was best to relieve Colonel Mawai,” the other one said. “We weren’t responsible for this offensive.”

He met Rey’s eyes. Her face was covered in blood spatter, and her eyes gleamed purple from the light of her blades. He knew he must himself be in a similar state. He felt blood pumping through his veins, a delicious rage that thickened in his belly when he turned on the assembled officers.

He extended his blade down at the nearest of the kneeling men and walked it into him, slowly. The man screamed until he lost his breath and then he just made a gagging, squealing noise.

Rey caught the lieutenant and took his head off with one sweep, but the other major was up and running before he could take a blow. She turned, hefted her glowing purple stiletto, and flung it at the man’s retreating back. It spun through the air, a purple blur, and sheared through his rib cage. He fell, his guts spilling out of his back. Rey summoned back the weapon and sheathed both blades. Kylo Ren turned to Mawai, a woman of 40, handsome with short white hair and dark intelligent eyes now looking fearfully and defiantly into his.

He whirled his blade and cut away the cuffs, allowing her to use her own hands to remove the gag. She turned her head and spit, then looked at him.

“I’m not going to kneel for you, Ren.”

He tilted his head. “I could execute you just as easily standing up, but it would take longer and be significantly more unpleasant for you.“

She assumed a “do-your-worst” expression. Rey came closer and pressed into his side. He could feel the heat of her exertion through his doublet.

“Join us,” she said. “Moden Canady is with us. We have the _Vindication_. Together with the _Axiom_ , we could subdue the _Conviction_ , and rebuild the fleet.”

“Moden Canady is dead,” Mawai said, looking between the two them, anticipating some trick.

Kylo Ren lifted his communicator. “General, advance your division. There’s an old friend here that wants to see you.”

It didn’t take long. Canady arrived on board a speeder with a contingent of stormtroopers. He looked pale, and gave Kylo Ren and Rey a wide berth. He’d seen the massacre and it had shaken him.

“Colonel,” he said quickly. “End this now and submit to Lord Ren’s rule.”

“How-?” she asked, looking at him in amazement.

He took her by the elbow and led her to the side. “Do as I advise. You’ve seen them. There is nowhere to run.”

“That girl-”

“Imbrasia,” Canady said. “Look around you.”

She did as he advised, taking in the carnage. Then sighed and turned back to Kylo Ren.

“I stay in command of my ship.”

He nodded. “Contingent with my needs.”

“I want the chain of command preserved,” she added. “Unless you need me in person to torture me or chastise me or whatever you Dark lords do, I’ll take my orders from General Canady.”

Kylo Ren extinguished his blade. “I’m satisfied. Friends, Colonel Mawai?”

She looked steadily at him. “No.”

Off to his left, Rey let out a little bark of laughter. He gave her a mental shove to show his annoyance.

“You’re not afraid,” Rey said to the woman, tilting her head in her curious way. “I can trust you, can’t I?”

Mawai turned to face her, and inclined her head respectfully. “Ma’am, I do not know you.”

“We respect your bravery, Colonel, but if you want to continue this fight…” Rey smiled, eyes glittering. “Nothing would please me more.”

The Colonel looked into those eyes, her own widening as she experienced some current of silent, brutal understanding. She hesitated. Then slowly, she dropped to her knees before them, humbled and trembling.

\--

The _Conviction_ was a quicker, less satisfying fight, especially after a month of hunting her across the galaxy. The captain, having word of what occurred on Cantonica, surrendered at once, and allowed himself to be made captive. His name was Quinrain, and he was a spineless worm. He attempted to save his own life by blaming his subordinates for the mutiny. Kylo Ren decided that a public example was exactly the way to encourage Quinrain’s crew to put aside all future thoughts of revolt. These were men and women accustomed to autocratic rule, so he expected them to respond well to discipline.

“I want you to do this,” he told Rey back in their quarters. “Show me your strength.”

She had taken to brooding after the battle of Canto Bight was done. She was diffident, perched on the edge of the bed. He understood the anticlimax of a good fight finished, but deep down he knew she still nursed doubts about her sadistic capacity.

“Why do you hesitate?” he asked, pulling her to face him.

She shook him off. “Because it’s murder. Because he’s a victim, not an enemy.”

“Of course he’s an enemy,” he replied, annoyed. “His crew and his troops as well, if we allow him to go unpunished.”

Rey said nothing, but he could read it easily in her mind that she would prefer to engage all of them at once more than perform this single act.

She stood, intending to walk away from him. Kylo Ren seized her by her shoulders and pulled her to him.

“Don’t fight it,” he told her. “Don’t let conflict into your heart.”

She looked at him, into his eyes. “I love you. The things I’ve done...because I love you, Kylo. It sickens me.”

He knew he should press her. He knew this doubt would only infect her, eat away at her from the inside. But the desperation in her eyes, the need, the encompassing truth of her words made him unable to hurt her in the way he needed to hurt her for her to break through this guilt.

_I want you to. I deserve it. I need it._

The thought whispered across the back of his neck. He shoved her on to the bed, hard enough to make her gasp for air. The Force surged through him, almost of its own accord, tearing open her tunic, her breeches, leaving her bare before him.

“This is what you want?” he demanded.

“It doesn’t matter what I want,” she said, in a voice that was numb.

_I’ll make you feel it._

Kylo Ren disrobed slowly, feeling her eyes on his body. Despondent she might be, but Rey was not indifferent to him. He felt her little shiver of pleasure as she appraised his rock hard torso. His scars excited her in particular, the ones she’d given him delighting her most.

He knelt down on to the bed, using his knees to force her thighs apart. She cried out in pain as he entered her with no prelude, no foreplay. His hand found her throat, and he applied pressure with his thumb, feeling her body respond under him, her wetness starting to flow, coating his cock as he pistoned in and out of her.

“Kylo,” she murmured, dazed. “If it’s peaceful where you are, then give me your darkness.”

A growl rumbled from his chest as he gave himself over, increasing his hand’s pressure on her throat. Her pulse beat against his skin, her neck so slender that his fingers reached around her vertebrae. Her eyes became wide as he tightened his grip even further, watching him, hypnotised.

 _Do it_ , she begged. _Let me go._

“Not today, my love,” he told her.

_Not that you should die by any hand but mine._

“Yes,” she whispered, unable to gather breath under his encircling fingers.

He held her there, cutting off enough air, enough circulation to make her feel the void's razor edge. Then he began to fuck her in earnest, giving her the whole length of his cock in violent, bruising thrusts. With his free hand, he thumbed the tears away from her eyes, stroking her face, her hair in tender contrast to his rigid lock on her throat.

Her eyes began to roll back as the pleasure of it began to take her. He could feel her tightening inside, and he could feel the strange inchoate place inside her where the wish for her own death met the need for the physical release of orgasm. He lived there inside that place with her, but denied her, wanting to draw out the sensation, want her to come from physical rather than psychic influence.

Her mouth worked silently as it started to build in her. He slid his hand down between them and brushed his thumb over her clit. He released her throat, and felt her spine curve as she arched back. A voiceless scream hissed from her mouth as she came so hard that she gushed, soaking him from navel to balls. The feeling of extreme contraction, of twisting, tightening pleasure was so intense for her that he began to come, completely unaided by his own manual efforts. He experienced her orgasm as she experienced his, that Force connection that was powerful enough to alter perception, that made it so fucking good every time.

He kissed her tears, her face, her mouth, his fingers combing through her hair, tongue tracing the shape his hand had left on her tender throat.

_Every time I doubt, you do this to me._

_Do what to you?_

_Make my pain your pleasure._

Kylo Ren was aware of her meaning. In these moments of physical intimacy, they both experienced an involuntary habitation of each other’s minds and bodies. He could feel her mourning for her own self, the Rey who was so long in dying. She didn’t have anyone she loved as much as he had loved his father, and therefore she did not have anyone to sacrifice on the altar of no return.

_Don't I, my love?_

She stared at him, her eyes coming into focus. Kylo Ren felt a chill run through him as they scrutinized him with even precision. Deep inside him, in the place where he kept the dim memory of the boy he had once been, he felt a glimmer of premonition. Then it passed, and he saw only Rey. His Rey.  

“I’m ready,” she said.

\--

Kylo Ren ordered an entire assembly of the Conviction on the parade deck. The officers, the enlisted men and the stormtroopers stood at attention while their captain was hauled bodily up to the speaking platform where Rey and Kylo Ren waited. They were in full regalia for this, black cowls, surcoats, the whole uniform.

“Any last words?” Kylo Ren asked the hapless captain kneeling before him.

“Please don’t kill me,” Quinrain begged. “I’ll be loyal. I won’t rebel. I’ll give up my office. I'll do anything at all.”

Rey looked to Kylo Ren, who nodded. He raised his black clad hand and manipulated the air, Forcing Quinrain’s back straight, head back so he faced the ceiling, and his mouth wide open. Unable to close his jaw, he whimpered pathetically.

Rey ignited her lightsaber and walked around to the front of his kneeling body. She looked out at them all, and sent the Force into their minds.

 _Witness the fate of traitors_.

She was hesitant no longer. Kylo Ren could feel her resolve. Slowly, she inserted the point of her blade into Quinrain’s open mouth. Slowly, she pressed it home. His screaming was short lived as his throat was seared from the inside, and he was dead long before the purple fire was fully sheathed in his body, choked by his cauterized, inoperable windpipe. She drew the blade back out of him and flicked it once before letting it rest, sizzling, at her side.

The stormtroopers were hard to read, but the human crew members were quietly horrified, pale, covered in sweat, and looking ill. One by one, and then all at once, they all dropped to their knees in a show of submission.

Rey walked away without acknowledging it, Kylo Ren tailing her. She walked until she gained the the stateroom, and then shrugged off her cowl, dropping moodily into one of the chairs by the holotable.

Kylo Ren touched her shoulder. “Rey.”

“I’m bored,” she said, slapping his hand away. He didn’t like this attitude, and found himself preferring her misery to this flippancy. She caught the edge of his thought, narrowed her eyes at him, and touched the darkening mark on her throat.

He sat down in the other chair. “We have Cantonica. Now that we have three destroyers, we can take more systems.”

"Star systems. Conquest." She fixed her gaze on him. “Boring.”

He looked her then, really looked at her, trying to find the source of her indifference, trying to sound the pain beneath it. Then he saw it.

“You miss it,” he said. “Your old life as a renegade. Your little band of recreants and parasites.”

“Don’t do that,” she muttered.

“You miss the feeling of being at hazard constantly. Of being outnumbered and hunted, of struggling to survive.”

She drew her hand out from under his. “That Rey is gone. I couldn't find her again if I tried. You made certain of that, didn't you.”

He rose, staring down at her with his dark eyes. “You know you can’t lie to me.”

_Do you not love me?_

“I love nothing,” she said.

“Rey.”

“You hypocrite,” she spat. “In spite of your chastising, your need for me betrays your humanity. You’re as weak as I am...or as weak as I was an hour ago.”

“We are bound,” he snapped, suddenly enraged to have her turn on him this way. “Whether you like it or not, Rey, you’re part of me as I am part of you. It may be that my love for you has inhibited my ascendency in the darkness, but what matter? What is a philosophy compared to the power we wield?”

She rose and looked down at him, judging him, finding him wanting. He hated her for it, almost rose to strike her, but held himself in check. 

_Bitch. How dare you. After all I've given you._

She turned away from him, and paced restlessly. “You once told me that the Force as balance was a fallacy. That it is merely energy and conscious beings its familiars,”

"Yes," he said through his teeth.

She walked further away, turning her eyes up to the canopy, the eternal night time.

“We are beings of consciousness and we need balance. We hardly sleep or take nourishment, because we're so dependently linked.”

“What are you saying?” he demanded. “Say it. Say the words.”

“I don’t know,” she said, still staring up into the starry oblivion. “It’s something I need to uncover. I don’t understand yet.”

Suddenly filled with an aching desperation, Kylo Ren went to her, wanting to embrace her, wanting to feel the warmth of her body against his.

But she turned her eyes from him and walked away. 

\--

Kylo Ren woke alone, jerked from sleep by a sudden needle sharp pain in his heart. It evolved into a squeezing feeling, like a hand inside his chest was digging its fingers into the blood vessels and ventricles. Then a tearing feeling that burned, like he had swallowed fire. Was this how the _Conviction's_ captain had felt when the purple lightsaber had impaled him?

“Rey,” he whimpered. He tried to rise from his bed, but the pain screamed through him, screaming from his open mouth as he cried out for her over and over into the darkness. The sentry that dared to open the door of his quarters found him curled on the floor, twitching, rocking, blood gently dripping from his nose and mouth.

A lieutenant informed Rey Nyk’sanaar had taken a shuttle and jumped to hyperspace before anyone thought to tell. Kylo Ren, too weakened to use the Force, choked to death with his own hand. After that, no one approached him. He gave no orders.

He could feel Rey shielding herself from him, using her discipline to prevent him from projecting himself to wherever she was, though it wouldn’t help him much because he wouldn’t be able to see her surroundings. All he knew was that she had abandoned him, and that she had been right. He was weak.

Now without her, he was nothing. 


	13. Territories Uncharted

Rey woke naked and alone in the stateroom’s bed. At first she was at a complete loss about why and how she got there, but the memory started to seep back into her flesh in the form of dull pain and soreness. She pulled the blankets up to cover herself, and then noticed her clothes folded neatly at the foot of her bed. She dressed hurriedly, went out into the corridor and headed straight for the bridge.

Kylo Ren was lounging in the pilot seat, his hands off the controls. They were well out from the moon and the asteroid field and heading towards open space. She was unsure, nervous about approaching him, the memory of what they’d done returning to her like phantom hands on her skin.

He looked up at her, sensed this, ignored her hesitation, sliding his hand up the small of her back. “Hello.”

She lingered against him for just an instant, then poked his shoulder. “Get out of my seat.”

He took his time, unfolding his long limbs and rising over her, uncomfortably close. He bent down, kissed her forehead, and slid past her into the galley. She shivered, shaking off the urge to go back there and do something unspeakable to his body, then dropped into the still-warm seat.

She looked at the navigational display. “Did you enter these coordinates?”

He ignored her question and came back with a couple of SREs. She opened one and started eating the dried fruit out of it, not realizing how hungry was was.

“We should get to Ahch-To in a couple of days,” he said, tearing open the package with his teeth and spitting a piece of it back into the galley.

Sitting there in his fatigues and his faded black shirt, nose in the tipped-back SRE bag, she couldn’t quite believe he was real. His movements were so casual, so gracefully sloppy, so completely unlike the fluid deliberation that his stiff black doublet seemed to necessitate. She supposed if she wore armor, she’d move differently than when she didn’t wear armor, but by then he had caught her looking.

“Come on, Rey,” he said. “It was obvious.”

“Yeah, you seem like you’ve got everything figured out,” she snapped, and stood up, making her way back to the galley.

He crumpled the food package up and tossed it into the trash compartment, then followed her, seizing her arms.

“This is not going to go the way you think.

“Let go of me.”

“No.” He backed her into the storage bulkhead. “You aren’t going to just leave me with Skywalker and go back to find your Resistance friends.”

She tried to shove him off, with no success whatever, and gave up. “I don’t have whatever it is you need. Maybe Master Luke does.”

“Master Luke,” he mocked. “Will take my head off my shoulders the minute you’re out of sight. And he has cause, even you can see that.”

Rey opened her mouth, wanting to say that wasn’t true, that Luke was a good man who believed he owed something to Ben Solo. But she knew that wasn’t right. Luke may have considered the past a mistake, but would he really act differently in light of events?

“If you’re there,” he insisted. “He won’t try to harm me.”

“I don’t think he will anyway,” she said, mostly believing it. Almost.

He ran the back of his knuckles along her throat. “He’ll sense the Vinculum. He may have sensed it before we did.”

She thought of Luke Skywalker’s virulent reluctance to train her. His fear of her. Of course, Ben Solo’s connection to her explained all of it. But she had to believe...to have faith...that Luke Skywalker could find it in him to forgive his nephew, as he’d forgiven his own father.

She looked up at him, hopeful, doubtful. He didn’t comfort her or ease her mind in any way, just looked down at her with inscrutable eyes.

“We have time,” he said. “We could both stand to be cleaner.”

She frowned, confused, then followed behind him as he dragged her by the hand to the stateroom’s hygiene mod and activated it.

The thing was as luxurious as the rest of the ship, large as a cabin and included a deep bathtub addition, large enough to fit even a man of Kylo Ren’s stature, and deep enough to drown in. She wondered what the original owner had intended to do with this addition, then submitted to Kylo Ren’s hands as they slid up under her shirt, lifting it off over her head. She began unwrapping her vambraces herself, unable to take her eyes off him as he shed his shirt, then his boots and fatigues.

She couldn’t deny he was an exceptionally attractive male. His muscles were cut and rippling, and somehow the damage he had taken, its warped scar tissue, made him more appealing. And he was tall in a way that made her feel small. As he slid his fingertips into the band of her pants, he had to bend at the knees to move them down, and even at that height it was easy for him to catch her mouth with his.

She didn’t even fight him now, or scold herself. He felt good, and if they were just two people on a spacecraft heading nowhere, she would have been quite happy to find herself in his company, or his bed.

“That’s a very nice thought, Rey,” he said as he stepped into the tub and then sank into the hot water with a groan. She followed him, sighing as the heat found her aches and pain, touched her tension and released it. She draped herself across him, her head falling to rest on his shoulder as he soaped her body, working his fingers into her muscles.

“I wish we’d met under other circumstances,” he said. “If we had both been Skywalker’s students, I might never have strayed.”

She could hear his heart thumbing through his chest, and she traced a wet finger over it. “Because of the Vinculum. The potential power.”

“No,” he said, and then more fervently. “No. Rey, look at me.”

She tilted her head up, unable to resist a small intake of breath when he took her chin in his hand.

“You are a light in the darkness,” he told her. “You are an incandescent spirit, a fearless warrior, clever, kind, quick to laugh. Once caught, nothing in this galaxy would have turned my eyes from you.”

She didn’t know what to say. She reached out to him, touched his wet hair, his face. “Ben…”

He gripped her shoulders. “For your sake, I wish I were Ben Solo. But I’m not. Ben Solo died with his father.”

“So that you could be pure,” she said, unable to keep the choke out of her voice. “So you could rule.”

His eyes too began mist over. “Yes.”

She had to know. “Would you take it back? Would you?”

“For you, Rey,” he said.

_For you I would have changed my course, not for any ideal or philosophy. You are real._

She wanted to argue, to press, to make him show a sign of guilt or shame, but his regret had no province in those emotions. She could only melt into him, his mouth and hands and body promising solace of a less complicated kind.

In bed, in his arms, it was easy to forget all of his enormities and sins. In bed he was just a man, and she could pretend his possessiveness, his penetrative stare and his greedy mouth were just that of any other ardent partner. The way he looked at her when she rode him was hypnotized, intoxicated. Then a memory, jagged edge and full of adrenaline would come to her, two sizzling lightsabers frying the snowflakes as they crossed, bearing down on her.

_You need a teacher._

Those eyes, full of hate and the passion of battle, were the same eyes that devoured her now. She couldn’t perceive a difference, but she did understand one thing with perfect clarity. Kylo Ren was the thing that Ben Solo could not renounce: a warrior who gloried in war for its own sake, not in service to a greater cause.

Her thoughts fragmented and melted away. His hands rode over her body, his abdomen flexing as he drove up into her. When she came, the strength in her legs failed her, and her caught her as she fell forward, crying out, shaking. He went to his side, pulled her back against him, curling around her. She moaned involuntarily as he pressed his cock into her, slowly but not gently. She felt him in the pit of her stomach.

“Rey,” he said into her ear as he took up the rhythm again. “I know you feel it."

_You know you are who you were meant to be when I'm with you._

His words purred over her ears, inside her head, but that hand that stroked her throat was the same that had cut down so many. It should not have pleased her or excited her, but it did. This time they came together, panting, crying out. She could feel his tears of exertion flowing from her eyes, and felt tears on the back of her neck. Gently, the afterglow consumed them. Rey fell asleep with him still inside her. 

\--

Luke Skywalker sensed the disturbance long before he saw the ship. It was a custom craft, a bullet with swept back wing stabilizers and a deep red underbelly. He waited as he watched it land, just where the Falcon had rested only a few months ago. He knew without seeing who it was aboard that spacecraft.

Rey disembarked first, raising her hand in greeting and taking long strides over the grassy knoll. Her face was open, hopeful, but the presence behind her was as shrouded in shadow as if he was clad in the darkness. He followed at a leisurely pace, his dark eyes taking in the surroundings with bored indifference.

“Kylo Ren,” he said finally. “Or is it Lord Ren, now? Are you a Sith? A Knight of Ren? What is the chivalry of destruction these days, I’ve forgotten.”

“Uncle,” he said dismissively, not bothering to meet Luke's eyes as he examined the landscape.

His costume was different, and hair was shorter, but he was otherwise unchanged as far as Luke could tell. He could see Rey tracking him in the tail of her vision, and felt a little stab of pity. The girl did not know why Ren had come, but Luke did.

“Master Luke,” Rey entreated. “I brought your nephew back so that you could help him.”

“He surrendered to you?” Luke asked pointedly. “Onboard Snoke’s ship, I mean.”

She blushed, and looked at her feet. “On condition he remain in my custody.”

“Yes,” Luke said, eyeing his nephew, who was now standing with hands folded behind his back. “The Resistance would execute him. The order has already been given.”

“Well,” Ren said, finally meeting his eyes. “Here I am. If anyone could give me a clean death, Uncle, I expect it would be you.”

“I no longer fight my battles with weapons,” Luke said heavily. “I will permit you to remain here while I confer with Rey about what it is to be done. Come, Rey.”

She glanced back at her captive. Luke felt the sudden ripple of power, an invisible conduit that connected them.

_She loves him. Poor girl._

\--

“I know you don’t want to hear this, Rey.”

“I gave my word, Master Luke,” she insisted. “I can’t go back on it now.”

They were in the sanctuary. Kylo Ren had been left to his own devices, to walk the island or brood as he saw fit. Luke wasn’t interested in him. He knew where he stood with Han Solo’s murderer.

“You must,” he insisted just as strongly. “This thing, this Vinculum, it will break both of you in time. The last recorded Vinculum was five hundred years ago, and only the Jedi were able to sever it.”

She looked at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “What...how did it happen?”

“Rey-”

“Tell me!” she demanded. There was a Dark note in her voice that frightened him

He sighed. “They were two young lovers in training to become Jedi Knights. They became so powerful that they sought to rule over others and pass judgement on them. There was a war, and these two...together they wreaked slaughter upon the defenders. An army soldiers, killed by invisible hands or carved up with weapons. Fighters ripped out of the sky like flies caught in a web.”

“How did it end?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and looked down into the reflecting pool. “The Jedi pulled them apart. After years of chaos, they were finally able to seize one of them and bear her away on a spacecraft. Understand, the longer the Vinculum is allowed to endure, the less either of its hosts are able to tolerate being away from each other. The one they were able to capture, once out of reach of her lover, her power diminished. The excruciating pain of separation killed them both.”

Rey’s expression was abject horror. Luke took her small hands with his own artificial and human hands, and squeezed them gently, trying to give her his strength and his knowledge, but knew that he could only give her his love, and only in this token form.

“I beg you,” he said. “Go. Leave here, before you can never leave him again. He will corrupt your heart, and bring you nothing but anguish and darkness.”

“How do you know?” she asked, her lip trembling. “I feel a change in him, I know that I do.”

“I know you want to believe that, child,” he said, still holding her hands. “But you know that it’s not enough. When a man offers himself to the Darkness, commits murder and slaughter, there is only one way to redeem his sacrilege.”

“No,” she whispered. “No. No I can’t.”

Luke looked at her, deep into her eyes. “If you stand by him, all of your goodness, your love and your nobility of heart will be eaten away until you find yourself doing things for love of him that you can’t fathom now.”

He could see that she knew it in her heart of hearts. Her tears were falling in earnest now. Luke wanted to hold her and comfort her, but he knew that it was not in his right. He was not her family, her protector, or even her teacher. It was a cruel stroke of fortune that she had found those things in a one who would use them to extinguish her light.

“One more night,” she pleaded. “Just one. I can’t...I need to say goodbye.”

“Rey, you must keep all knowledge of this out of his hands,” Luke pressed. “He can’t be alerted to what you intend or he will prevent you from leaving. I won’t be able to stop him.”

“I know what I must do,” she said, rising from her place, her face pale but set. “I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”

“I will help you,” he promised her. “When the time comes...I will find a way to free you.”

She gave him one more anguished look. His heart broke for her, and he wished for nothing more that he could solve her awful dilemma. 

_It was not to be, my dear._

She understood, nodded. Then she walked away from the place into the falling darkness.

 


	14. The Sparrow and the Sparrowhawk

It was eight months before word of Rey reached his ears.

Kylo Ren had spent the intervening time in conquest, but his heart was absent from all desire for empire. He did it only so that his resources and reach might increase, that he could mount more long range scouting missions. Otherwise he delegated, served well by his fearful generals.

The first ten days had been agony. The Reaper’s first mate took command after his master took to his quarters and remained there. Kylo Ren summoned Lieutenant Trinn, his supply officer and personal armorer, having heard that she had been the last person to whom Rey Nyk’sanaar had spoken. Then he killed her with a vicious, invisible blow to the skull that made the young woman’s dying long.

By degrees, Kylo Ren recovered. The physical pain faded and his internal hemorrhaging ceased, but it was the grief that laid him low. He paced his ship, searching for signs of her. He gazed at holomaps for days on end. When he finally appeared on deck, his crew were petrified that any one of them might go the way of Trinn, anyone who had committed the crime of being near the shuttle Nyk’sanaar boarded, or had committed the crime of looking on her face after Kylo Ren himself had seen it for the last time.

He began to give orders. He devised a plan of conquest that would leave him in possession of a chain of systems, each of them giving him greater control of three different runs. Access to them would speed his search. It was the only thing that drove him now. Anyone who had seen Kylo Ren’s tears was murdered so brutally that the vaguest hint of a notion that one might take his mourning as an exploitable weakness was now pure anathema.

Then, the faintest signal. Not from any beacon or probe, but a frisson across the back of his neck. A lull, and then energy like static electricity running down his arms and legs.

“Helmsman,” he ordered. “Put us on course for the unknown territories. Straight into deep space. “

“Sir.” The ship turned course at once.

“Lord Ren,” said the communications officer. “Shall I signal the fleet to follow?”

“No. Tell the General to take the ships on to Dubrillon. We will go alone.”

And alone Kylo Ren went down to Ahch-To, flying his own Silencer tie fighter. He found the island easily enough, following the summons of her mind. He put down in a cleft near the bottom of a very long line of stairs and shut down his engines. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her, and in his heart he knew fear. Even though he had done nothing for the better part of the year than search in vain for her, that fear was palpable enough to dry his mouth.

Night was coming on and the air was stormy, full of spitting rain and harsh wind. Kylo Ren wrapped his cowl about him, pulled it up over his head, and stepped out on to the path.

“Ben.”

The voice was male and...familiar. Kylo Ren whirled around. The dim outline of Luke Skywalker stood before him, hands folded.

“How…?”

The Luke apparition approached him, his face sore tired and his eyes full of sadness. “Ben, you must put an end to this thing. This Vinculum has done more than bond you together, more than drawn an innocent woman into a hell of corruption. The Vinculum, the Force...it has broken time.”

“Speak sense, old man,” he snapped, and continued walking. The ghost followed him, keeping pace easily. Kylo Ren noticed that he had two whole hands. His cyborg appendage was not part of his aspect.

“This timeline is one that was not meant to be. It is a fragment, a splinter. It must be joined back to real time, or eventually it will fall apart and create a black hole in this galaxy of unsurpassed size.”

“That,” Kylo Ren spat. “Sounds like an improvement.”

Luke drifted back, though he stayed close. “When you see her, you will know what to do.”

Kylo Ren had nothing to say to that. He hurried up the steps and followed them towards a spur that towered over the water. There he saw Rey, standing alone, her long braid whipping around in the wind as she stared out into the turbulent waters. He felt her, pulsing, throbbing with power.

“Years ago I came here searching for a teacher,” she said, her voice calm, but...wrong, somehow. He couldn’t identify why.

“I thought I was your teacher,” he said.

She turned slowly to face him, and he felt something sour rise up in the back of his throat.

Her face was ghostly, the freckles gone, the laugh lines smoothed. Her face unmarked, except for a single raised line, a vertical scar that bisected her face. It ran from her forehead down to her chin like a seam. Her eyes were rimmed in red, inflamed.

“You’re wondering about this,” she indicated the scar with a gloved finger. “I encountered the Resistance, or I should say, the Resistance encountered me.”

“Did they.” He was examining her, trying to find what exactly it was that was wrong with her. Something artificial, mechanical. It was the way her faced moved, her mouth less _animated_ , but somehow more _articulated_.

“You remember Finn,” she said softly. Then she put on a simpering voice. “ _Oh Rey, what did they do to you, I know that you’re still in there somewhere, please let me help you._ ”

Kylo Ren moved closer in spite of himself. "Did you kill him?”

She laughed. It was terrifying. Her mouth stretched too wide over a steel mandibles that were filled with hundreds of sharp, needle shaped teeth.

“No, my love. I told him that Rey was gone. I _was_ going to cut Rey’s face off to make him understand. I got this far before he begged me to stop. Then he begged me to kill him. I left him alive, but I don’t think there’s much of him inside that pretty little head.”

He stared at her. “Was that pantomime or has Rey perished in you?”

“Has Ben Solo perished in you?” she asked, looking at him with those bloodshot eyes, unblinking and reptilian. “Because I’ve always suspected that he is still chained up somewhere deep inside of Kylo Ren. Still...split down the middle.”

She touched a finger to her forehead and drew it down over the scar.

“I would cut my face off for you if you needed proof.” he said, advancing on her. “You almost did it for me once, my love.”

“Love,” she murmured, tasting it as though it was a new word she had not said before. “Yes, you did give me the darkness. Or more accurately, you gave me _to_ the darkness, since the darkness was never really yours to bestow. You love me, but darkness does not love. The two things are incompatible.”

Suddenly, impetuously, he reached for her arm. He did not know why he entertained the fantasy that he could bring her back from this self mutilation. 

“I want you to come home, Rey. Come back to me, I am nothing without you. You need me too, surely. We are bound.”

She stepped back from, just out of reached. 

“Yes,” she admitted, troubled. “Need you. The connection that binds us will never truly abate, and the power it represents is that which is shared. I need you, Kylo Ren. Without you there is a weakness in the fabric of my potentiality. The weakness is in my flesh, so I have replaced much of it with that which does not feel. But the flesh that remains still... _feels_ for you.”

“Then come. I will give you anything you ask. I will do anything. I adore you. I worship you.”

Even as he said it, he knew it was wrong. He adored Rey. Rey in her youthful joy, her always-curious almond shaped eyes, her smiling mouth. Rey, the joyful warrior, the intrepid Jedi prodigy. This thing that wore Rey’s form, that smiled needles at him with Rey’s mouth, this was not Rey. She was right. Rey was dead, and this was only Darkness dressed up in her skin.

“Yes, Kylo Ren,” she said, answering his thoughts rather than his words. “Rey does not live here anymore. Rey loved you, and you fed her to the dark, little by little. Every time she fought to make her way to the surface, you dragged her back with lust and poisoned sentimentality. But she didn’t want the darkness. She wanted you. And the parts of you that loved her, those parts were Ben Solo the boy.”

 _Yes_ , he realized. _I killed you. I held you down and drowned your spirit in blood._

“I’m sorry." His voice shook. Tears began to form in his eyes and he didn’t try to brush them away. “I am sorry, Rey.”

“Don’t be sorry, my love,” she said, tilting her head in that unnatural, marionette-like way. “You’re here now. There’s something I need from you. Something that will complete my training. Will you help me?”

He took a step towards her, his face only inches from hers. “Anything.”

She raised her hand from under her cloak- a hand that he recognized instantly as the hand of Luke Skywalker, his own master, grafted on to the place where her own hand, delicate and strong, had once been. In her mechanical fingers, the slender lightsaber. Its violent beam tore through the air as it ignited, and the mist sizzled around it. In her good hand, the violet beamed dirk bloomed into life.

She smiled that smile, the one that stretched her mouth too wide over the mechanical workings of her artificial jaw and showed rows needle-fine points.

“All you need to do," she said pleasantly. "Is die.”

 


	15. Who Wakes the Sleepers

When Rey returned to the Sparrowhawk stateroom, Kylo Ren did not ask her about her tearstained face, or demand to know what passed between her and his uncle. He gathered her up, and carried her to the bed, kissing her grief away and giving her the peace she only knew when he was inside her.

Afterwards, she did not want to sleep. Tomorrow she would depart, and leave him to whatever fate Luke Skywalker planned to mete out. Likely, he strike his nephew down when he was weakened by the pain of separation. She didn’t know if she could go through with it. She didn’t want to sleep, because the time would go faster if she did.

She fell asleep anyway, a deep, sudden unconsciousness. She didn’t know later if it had been Kylo Ren’s doing. Perhaps it was Skywalker. She only knew that she dreamed of Kylo Ren, of his restless footsteps, his stalking gait. She saw through his eyes as he scanned the dark jagged spires, and his eyes finally lighted on a silhouette standing tall upon a rocky spur that overlooked the ocean.

The wind picked up, whistling through her mind, and over the Sparrowhawk’s ailerons. She twitched, feeling a jerk of irritation, of contempt, of hatred. When the figure turned around, the expression on his face, the serene knowing, sent a surge of rage through her. This man who had stolen her life, who had condemned her with a look, had woken her- _woken her?-_ in the night with a weapon raised in anger. His last ally, his last family, the uncle he had adored since he before he knew a single one of his deeds.

_Luke Skywalker’s eyes were steady. “I am sorry, Ben. You'll never know how much.”_

_“Not enough,” Kylo Ren said, his red cross guarded lightsaber igniting into life. “It will never be enough. Perhaps I'll be able to forgive your corpse, uncle, but I have no way of knowing while you live.”_

_“There are a great deal of things you will never know,” Skywalker said with a sigh. "Rey will never forgive you if you cut me down."_

_Kylo Ren swung his blade idly, making it crackle and hiss in the damp air._

_"She's just a girl, and she's bound to me," he said softly. "She'll forgive me in a month, a year. Perhaps when I've slaughtered the rest of her friends, or when they abandon her after they learn the truth. Don't think I can't teach her the meaning of the word 'forsaken'."_

_Luke Skywalker reached into his robes and withdrew an ancient lightsaber she had never seen before. It flamed into life, a blade of purple fire._   

_"I let the darkness take you, Ben. I won't let you take her into the darkness with you."_

Rey sat bolt upright. She pulled on her clothes as fast as she could and pelted up the steep mountain face.

She could see them in the middle distance, the purple and the red slashing through the air like wings of light, their electric humming dull in the thick air. She pounded up the uneven stairs, taking them two at a time. Kylo Ren and Luke Skywalker went at it full tilt, the old man holding his own, but tiring. Kylo Ren was younger, faster, and he had the power of his rage. 

She was out of breath by the time she arrived at the scene, but she gulped down air and was able to put force behind the scream.

“Ben!”

They both turned to look at her. Luke tried to take advantage of the moment by slashing downwards, but Kylo Ren parried him with an upward sweep, throwing his uncle off balance. 

“Stay out of this, Rey," he growled, his eyes now fixed on his enemy, full of brutal purpose. 

Charged with the power of the Vinculum, Rey dashed towards their arena, but when she made it to the edge of their field of combat, she realized something absurd. She had left her lightsaber back on the ship. She tried to Force them apart, but Kylo Ren was wise to that. He used the momentum of her power and redirected it, sending it into Luke Skywalker. The old man was thrown back against the ground, stunned. His lightsaber skittered out of his hand and into the empty air over the roiling water. 

Without thinking, Rey used the Force to snatch it. It flew effortlessly into her hand. She did not activate it, but interposed herself between Luke and her one-time lover, waiting to see what Kylo Ren would do.   

"Put up your blade," she told him calmly. "Or I'll finish what I started in the forest."

"Will you?" he wondered, his eyes penetrating and dangerous. "Make me believe it. Show me the killer, Rey." 

"I am not like you," she hissed. "I don't demolish planets, or murder the people I love because I can't stand their judgement."

He bared his teeth. “Lies. I can see it in you. I can I feel it. The rage. The hypocrisy. The lie that you could never love me because you would rather die than become like me. Well, I stand here, one who loves you. Cut me down, and you'll be alone until the darkness finally takes you.”

"Now who's the liar?" she scoffed. "There is nothing you have that I need."

He looked at her, and she saw him true. She saw the depth of his self pity, his desperation. His oppressive, crushing loneliness. 

He reached out to her, extended his hand. "Please, Rey. Come with me. Leave this place with me. I'll spare Skywalker if you ask me to, but don't do this."

It was everything she had wanted, she realized. Her secret wish, her way out of her own destiny. As she realized it, she hardened inside. She rejected it. She knew in her soul that she needed to end him and she didn't care that it would end her too. 

She ignited the purple blade and beckoned him. "Enough."

His nostrils flared and she felt the current of hate as it surged through every particle of him. 

"Come and die then, bitch."

\--

 

_Finn was not aware when his mind bloomed back into consciousness because he couldn't comprehend his unconsciousness. He had no physical form, only a loose collection of atoms, small enough to peer through the tiny gaps in woven time and space. The Force exerted tension on those threads, allowing him to perceive events. The events happened simultaneously, but Finn's detached consciousness reassembled each second into pictures he could understand._

_Ahch-To. Two different islands in two different times. Two different Kylo Ren's, and two different Reys. Two very different Reys. This one was a thing of nightmares._

Kylo Ren was just in time to catch Rey's blow as it arced down at lightning speed. The impact sent him to his knees, but he brought his own blade to bear and was able to deflect her next cut. He stared up at her, her black cowl now blowing behind her as she waited for him to rise.

“Come on, Ben,” she mocked. “This is what you wanted for me. As long as you live, I will never be free. As long as you’re still anchoring one end of the Force with your pathetic, meaningless life, I will never truly achieve my full potential.”

This time when she tried to cut him from the side, he parried and grazed her in the chest. She gasped, stepping back on to one foot. He went to press her, hoping to get her fully off balance, but she righted herself and sent back at him with a wave of energy. He fell back, but used the Force to catch himself before he hit the ground. He propelled himself back up with one hand, leading with his lightsaber.

“You’re going to to tire eventually, dear one,” she told him, purple light flashing in her eyes as the falling rain sizzled and sputtered in her lightsaber beam. “You’re just human, Ben. Just a man, easily distracted by material things like fleets and empires and girls like Rey. A boy with his toys.”

“You might be right.” He circled her, holding his red lightsaber in both hands, watching her warily, looking for an opening. “Maybe I am weak. But you haven’t told me why I need to die for you to succeed, if your plans are so elevated beyond the material.”

She whirled her blade in one hand, making it sing, leaving rings of faded violet light in the dense, dark air.

“It’s wisdom as ancient as the Force itself," she said. "To kill an enemy is to take his Force into yourself. To kill a lover...that Force must be even more potent. Come closer, my love, and we’ll find out together.”

“I,” Kylo Ren said as he directed all his energy beneath his feet. “Am not your love.”

 

_The vision changed, shifting back to Rey, the Rey of his heart. He watched her battle her foe, the eternal traitor, the vicious murderer._

_Kill him, Rey. Put your blade through his black heart._

Rey charged, her purple lightsaber raised for a high slash. Kylo Ren raised his red one to block the cut, but she came down under it and drew a line of black from his collarbone to his belly. With a scream of pain, he jumped back just in time to avoid being cut in half, but it didn't stop him. He whipped his blade up, trying for a body hit.

She batted his blade away in a shower of sparks, bringing back the riposte to try and make a cut to his shoulder. Her blade sang with electricity as it flew through the air. She advanced, full in the knowledge that she could kill him, could separate his head from his body. She wanted to weep. She wanted to laugh for joy.  She could feel his confidence waver as he saw it in her eyes. He centered himself and raised his guard, ignoring the blood that was soaking his front. 

She smiled at him, beckoning with her fingers, willing him to come at her. 

_This is perfection. This is what it is to be alive. This is peace, to combat an enemy I will truly mourn._

\--

 _Kylo Ren, you bastard, you evil twisted snake, you had better finish this because I am not going to go to hell in a black hole for your mistakes._ _You made this monster and now you have to destroy it._

Kylo Ren ducked under another blow from the purple lightsaber. Then another. He was panting, clouds of breath steaming the air. He was tiring. She was stronger, her body enhanced with pieces of tireless machine. She wanted to kill him more than he wanted to kill her, but not out of love for him. Kylo Ren drew strength from that, from his desire to give her mercy. He caught another blow and turned it aside, this time following the parry through and slicing the dirk in half.

She threw the broken handle at him, but he brushed it aside with the Force. Even as he did so, the thing-that-had-been Rey launched towards him, screaming like a banshee, her blade on a course to impale him through the heart. In this instant, he saw the way.

He had no thoughts of checking the lunge. Instead he raised his blade and extended, rushing her with all the speed he had, driving his point towards her neck. In his mind’s eye he could see it separating, skin burning away from some combination of muscle and wire, whatever was left of Rey’s organic anatomy. He pursued the blow, not caring that she would kill him, hoping that she would kill him and end his pain, and then-

\--

_Cut him down, Rey. You did it once, you can do it again._

Rey lunged. She went low, trying to avoid his formidable reach as she extended her weapon, aiming the point blow directly into his abdomen and not caring that his own weapon was coming over top, slashing downwards with unstoppable speed. It would sever her spine. It didn’t matter. It was over.

Luke Skywalker, unbeknownst to both, battered but not beaten, rose unsteadily from where he had lain. He raised his hand and snatched at the air, twisting his wrist.

Kylo Ren's blade moved away from its intended target, and suddenly she felt her own rising of its own accord. Her blow and his both went off course as the lightsabers jerked the hands holding them away, forcing them to parry. The beams met, and exploded with the force of a bomb

The impact so powerful it erased sound, erased sight, erased touch and smell. Blinding white light ripped its way out of the rent they had made in space time. The rocks and grass, and the three living beings were consumed by the emptiness.  

\--

_He knew how it would end. He should not be so afraid, but the visceral wrongness of the reality he was witnessing filled him with sorrow and despair. If he remembered it all after this, he would be able to feel it like acid in his bones._

_Time, he thought, to finish this._

Kylo Ren's vicious red slash was on course to cut through Rey's neck and collarbone, and in return her blow would impale him. Neither saw as the ghost of Luke Skywalker materialized beside the contenders.

Rey screamed as she drove her weapon towards her lover, her tormentor, and Kylo Ren pressed forward, determined to end it, to end everything.

Skywalker’s phantom hand interposed itself, and the Force that came from it was enough to divert their blows from their intended targets. The blades crossed. The explosion rocked every fibre of existence. 

The world shattered and came apart, then shattered and came apart again. Darkness leaking through the gashes in their reality, eating away at it like a ravenous monster.

There was no sound. Then there was nothingness. Then there was complete void.


	16. In Ashes

_Don’t do this. Please don’t go this way._

_No, you’re still holding on! Let go!"_

_She can only stare, fearful to open her mouth._

_Do you want to know the truth about your parents? Or have you always known, and you’ve just hidden it away? You know the truth. Say it. Say it._

_...they were nobody._

_Just some filthy junk traders. They sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead, in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert. You have no place in this story._

_You come from nothing._

_You’re nothing._

_But not to me._

_Join me. Please._

_She raises her hand, but not to take his. Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber flies out of Kylo Ren’s holster, but he seizes the other end of it using the Force. Together they vie, fighting for control of it, their power so perfectly matched that it refuses to obey either of them. It cracks open with an explosion so powerful that the two of them are thrown clear, and are not conscious for the impact of the cruiser’s lightspeed jump._

When Finn woke, he was dizzy and disoriented. On his back, he looked up and saw a great gash in the sky made of white light that was painful to look upon. The gash impaled the great silo, filling the cylinder with illumination.

In the centre of the silo were Kylo Ren and Rey, both of them also just recovering from the heavy blow they’d both been dealt. All of them stared up at the great tear, watched as it began to suck itself in at the edges, pieces of reality starting to rebuild themselves at its borders until finally, it was nothing more than a sliver of smoky light. Then it was gone.

Finn struggled to his feet, intending to run straight to Rey to support her, but she held her hand to stop him. She turned to him, put her hands on his. Over her shoulder, Kylo Ren was staring at his gloved palms, where tears had fallen in them. He was shaking, just as he, Finn, and Rey were both shaking. 

“We need to go,” Finn said, gripping her hands. “Rey.”

Rey turned an anguished look on Kylo Ren, who stared at her with a blank face full of hollow eyes. Finn couldn't hear it, but he knew that he was begging her, silently, not to leave. She hesitated. 

Finn stepped in between them, and stared down the man whose caprice and ambition had forced this confrontation. He gave Ren the full measure of his perspective, knowing he would understand his meaning, his final question. 

_Haven't you done enough?_

Kylo Ren contemplated him, looked at Rey and seemed to say something that set her slightly more at ease. Then he met Finn's eyes.

Finn turned his back on him, and touched Rey's shoulder, gently turning her away from the scene. She followed him with halting steps, but together they made their way out of silo. 

A voice touched his thoughts like a needle.

_We'll settle this one day._

\--

Rey lay awake on her bunk, feeling like she’d never sleep again. She wanted to die, just to put an end to the horrifyingly substantial, tactile recollections. She was in psychological turmoil, experiencing two sets of memories, the trauma of them like living nightmares. She spent hours repeating “it never happened” to herself, but that didn’t quell her heartbreak, or stop her from checking her jaw to make sure it was still made of bone.

Finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer, she reached out for him.

_Can you still hear me?_

Silence. Nothing. And then-

_Yes. We’re still connected._

_But it’s different somehow. I didn’t hurt so badly when I left you. I felt it, but it wasn’t...pain._

_It has weakened._

_Or we’ve grown stronger._

_Perhaps._

_I need to see you._

_Then come. Project._

She had never done it before. He had always been the one intruding on her thoughts. She felt for him, ushered herself into his presence.

Then he was there before her, as though in her cabin, and she appearing to him presumably aboard the _Reaper_. He looked at least as ragged as she felt, his face pale, his position contemplative.

“What the hell happened back there?” she demanded.

“A temporal rift,” he said, still staring off into a corner. “A splintering of time, whereby two possible realities of the billions of possible realities manifested themselves because of decisions you and I made differently in the throne room after I killed Snoke.”

Rey sighed, annoyed. “I figured that much out for myself, thanks. Why did it happen?”

“I'm uncertain."

“Make a guess, then.”

He took a deep breath, and turned his eyes on her. “I think that the Vinculum caused the Force to react so powerfully that it tore a hole in space time.”

“Because we fought each other?”

“Because we both made absolute earnest attempts to kill one another at the same time.”

She frowned. “If only one of us-”

“If only one of us had made the attempt and succeeded, the Vinculum might not have reacted. Or maybe it would.”

It dawned on her. “If we fight, we could destroy...we could rip time apart.”

He looked at her intently. “Do you want to go on fighting?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I don’t have any choice. I’m not going to abandon my cause and neither will you.”

He moved towards her, his hand reaching out for hers. She took it, feeling his fingers under the black leather, a comforting illusion.

“I don’t know how matters stand now,” he said. “As you said, the connection has altered itself in some way, so that our meeting might not trigger the same event.”

“Oh,” she scoffed. “So we might be able to kill each other after all.”

His thumb smoothed across her knuckles, a twitch appearing at the corner of his mouth. “It might be. We have no way of knowing. Perhaps someone living, some scholar, knows more about how the Vinculum behaves.”

 _Someone living_ , she thought. _Or someone dead._

“I have an idea.”


	17. Return to the Island

The island was waiting for her. It should not have been there at all, having been destroyed by the _Reaper’s_ laser cannons, but the instinct that had drawn Rey here had also told her that this place, the Jedi’s place, was not subject to the the same rules as the rest of the galaxy. She couldn’t begin to fathom what confluence of shifting timelines had resurrected the place. She could feel it in the fabric of the Force, like a missed stitch.

Rey disembarked from the _Falcon_ , shrugged her cloak closer to her body, trying to keep the warmth in. The island was no less stormy, nor less desolate. The wildlife was hunkered down for the night. The caretakers still long gone. She traced the path she had taken over and over during her last stay here, when following Kylo Ren’s footsteps, or walking away while he stalked hers

They had come here both in her own timeline, and in two others. As much shame and degradation as she felt about her not-quite-three days with him here on this island, now she clung to that memory in an effort to stave off the horror of the other two experiences. Betrayal and murder. Rage and retribution. It still made her nights a torment.

She made her way to the sanctuary, finding the remnants of the fire in the Jedi mosaic. She focused her energy on the partly burned logs, willing the process of ignition by manipulating air flow and friction. First the spark, and then a blaze of flames erupting from the dead ashes. She went to the furs she and Kylo Ren had shared. She thought briefly on that time, how good he’d made her feel, and how completely wretched.

Then she turned her mind away, and concentrated, reaching out through the Force. She closed her eyes.

_Master Luke, may I speak with you?_

She didn’t know exactly what she’d see when opened them, but there he stood, a faint blue glow around him that set him apart from the living world. She stood up at once, surprised to see her summons had worked.

“Rey,” he said, smiling down on her, his hands folded. “I’ve been waiting for you to contact me.”

She wanted to put her arms around him, but couldn’t stop herself from being a little angry. “Why waiting? You could have come any time!”

He shook his head sadly. “No. There was nothing I could have done to derail events. I did what I could in those other timelines, but in this one, there was no preventing what happened between you in the Chronomian silo.”

“What do I do?” she asked desperately. “I don’t know how to rid myself of this...this death sentence.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Death sentence for whom?”

She shrugged, holding her hands out. “Everyone. Me, Kylo Ren. Anyone affected by whatever the Vinculum does the next time we face each other.”

He held up his hand to quiet her. “I know why you fear that outcome. But I don’t think it will happen again, and I’ll give you my reasons. Be patient with me, Rey. I had little enough patience with you, I know.”

She waved it off, not concerned. “Will you sit down with me?”

The apparition that was Luke Skywalker assumed a sitting position on the lip of the ring, his face illuminated by the flames, but also illuminated by the power of the Force. Rey said beside him, and looked into his old face.

“I’m trying to understand," she pleaded.

“The Vinculum,” Luke began. “Is a powerful and volatile manifestation of the Force, anchored in two living beings. Kylo Ren was correct when he said the Force is not concerned with moral balance, or light and dark- those are just names mortals give it to justify having such awe inspiring power. Responsibility or indulgence. Honour or corruption. Mortal choices.”

She nodded, wanting to hurry him on, but knowing better.

“When you and Kylo Ren tried to end each other, the Vinculum’s energy was turned on itself. The action was so powerful that it ripped time apart. The Force acted of its own accord when it turned your lightsabers to block both fatal blows from connecting. You were flung into two different timelines because the Vinculum believed that perhaps it could force you and your enemy to live together in harmony if it changed the events of after Snoke’s death. So much we know.”

“But Master Luke,” she pressed, no longer able to keep silent. “What has happened since we returned from the silo? Why did the connection change?”

“The Vinculum- the Force- is conscious. It wants only one thing, which is to maintain itself, the connection. It has begun to understand that you and Ben Solo-as-was can only ever be at odds because you are both so firm in your convictions. The Vinculum does not understand conviction, or belief, or right and wrong. The only thing it understands is when its hosts are harming each other, and therefore it sought to reconcile you. But it learned from the failure of those two timelines that you and Han Solo’s son are fated to battle until one of you dies.”

She felt heaviness inside her, and curled her arms around herself. “I know.”

“It evolved,” Luke said simply. “The Vinculum still connects you, but the power has become diffused. It took a rent in the fabric of space time for it to reach the conclusion, but I believe now that it knows it cannot vest all of its power in two beings or depend on them always being in proximity to one another. The Vinculum survives only if the two of you survive, but you needs must try to prevail over one another when you are near. It won’t endure as long as you are close by with the intent to fight.”

“I don’t understand. How can it sustain itself that way?”

“It can’t, not against your wills. Not using the Force. It, I believe, compromised. Unless I’m very much mistaken, the superlative, destructive power that you and Ben Solo wield when you are together is no longer just a foregone consequence of your closeness- and therefore you can’t use it against each other.”

“And it didn’t hurt when I left his presence,” she mused. “I mean it did, I felt...something, but it wasn’t like when I left Ahch-To the last time.”

“The most important thing,” Luke concluded. “Is that you are no longer bound by the rules that would both drive you together and thereby forcing a contest between you. The power you wielded together has been split between you, and can only be reunited if you both choose. The Vinculum has, in essence, given back the free will for either of you to choose to join the other on your own terms...or choose not.”

Rey bit her lip. “Kylo Ren will try to turn me. He’ll never stop pursuing me because he’ll never be satisfied with the power he has.”

Luke looked tired. “Yes. He has chosen to rule in hell, and those who rule in hell are trapped there. You chose to serve on behalf of freedom, and you may elect to retire from that service because you give it freely. Kylo Ren will never be free.”

“Maybe someday, he’ll…he’ll…” Rey trailed off, realizing that she had witnessed and lived “one day”. She looked out at the dark sky, then back to her master, trying to hold back her tears.

“One day,” Luke’s ghost said, and reached to grasp her shoulder. “No one is beyond redemption. The living aspect of me you encountered was weak and bitter, and wrong. But the fact is no one who truly wants to come back from darkness expects to do so without tremendous recompense. Given freely, it’s possible.”

Rey realized that the hand on her shoulder was made, at least in spiritual aspect, of flesh and blood. She looked up into his face, and saw his smile, full of peace and acceptance. No judgement, no anger, just love.

Then, in the doorway, she saw a familiar silhouette. Long, black shrouded limbs, a mane of black hair. A scar. A pair of dark, glittering eyes.

She looked back and the hand on her shoulder vanished. The ghost of Luke was gone.

“How much did you hear?” she asked, shaking slightly as she rose.

“Everything,” Kylo Ren said, walking towards her. At first she hesitated, but then she ran to him, into his arms. His fingers tightened in her hair as he pressed his face into hers.

“Let’s…” his throat was dry. “Let’s make a pact.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Neither of us can turn from our course. We both know that now. We have lived those lives.”

“Yes,” she agreed, shuddering.

“Let’s make this neutral ground,” he said. “Let’s make this our place. When we are here, we can set aside our battle and simply...be.”

She thought about it. Then she nodded, and leaned up on her toes to kiss his generous mouth, to press her lips against the raised line of his scar. She felt the power of their connection, but she also felt him, this strange sad angry man who loved her because she was everything he could never be. She loved him in turn because she would never believe that to be true.

_But you’re wrong._

Rey didn’t know whose thought it was. She decided it didn’t make any difference. This place could be their other timeline, the one where destiny was put on hold. And maybe one day, when they could no longer contend for control of the galaxy, she and Kylo Ren could return here to this place, this little gap in their fate.  

“I promise,” he told her. “One day...if we live, we will return here.”

“If we live,” she agreed, wanting to laugh, wanting to sob. “But if we don’t?”

He sighed deeply, his lungs expanding in his chest, his heart beating against her. “I don’t see how that affects the terms. You know that whatever remains of me will seek you out.”

“Even if I...if I’m the one who…” she didn’t want to say it. “Succeeds.”

He laughed. “Rey, my darling warrior, my brave girl. Do you think my pride could stand it if I was vanquished by anyone else?”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It is for me. Don’t forget who I am.”

She sighed. “Please.”

“Will you make this pact with me? Will you make this our refuge?”

“Yes,” she said, more certain of it than anything she’d ever felt. "I will."

 

_Yes. One day, if I should chance to grow old and die, or I should fall in battle, my spirit will return here and find you._

_Then we can lay down our arms_

_and depart from each other no more._

 

 

 

 


End file.
